


Between the Past and Future Tense

by raving_liberal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alive Jessica Moore, Alternate Season/Series 12, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Jessica Moore, British Men of Letters (Supernatural) Being Assholes, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s11e23 Alpha and Omega, Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, Episode: s12e02 Mamma Mia, Hurt Sam Winchester, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Protective Dean Winchester, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24737671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: Instead of bringing Mary Winchester back to life, Amara brings back Jess Moore. Dean and Jess bond as they search for Sam, who was kidnapped from the bunker by a mysterious blonde English woman. As Jess learns more about the world of hunting, she discovers a capacity for violence she didn't realize she had. While Dean grows closer to Jess, he uncovers feelings about Sam he's always been too afraid to explore. Can they find Sam in time to save his life? Will any of the three of them ever be the same again?
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore & Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 28
Kudos: 87





	Between the Past and Future Tense

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork for this bang was created by **M14Mouse** , who was a delight to work with. You can find the master art post [here](https://m14mouse.livejournal.com/93190.html).
> 
> As always, thank you to **david of oz** for being an amazing editor and source of emoational support. Additional thanks to **geeky_ramblings** for being my trusted first reader and to **doctorkilljoy** for sprinting with me so I could get this bang turned in on time!

_Dean, you gave me what I needed most. I want to do the same for you._

Amara and Chuck dissolve into columns of darkness and light that entwine as they race towards the heavens. Dean is left standing alone in the garden, the rejuvenated sun shining on his face and him with no clue what Amara’s last words mean. How can she give him what he needs most? Even Dean doesn’t know what he needs most. A full night’s sleep, possibly. A cheeseburger and a six-pack of decent beer, probably. His car and miles of open road to drive her on, Sam safely ensconced in the passenger seat, and maybe Cas in the back asking his weird questions. None of these things currently requires intervention from a cosmic being. 

What Dean really needs, he decides as the sun begins setting over the park, is a cell signal. He can’t get one at the gazebo, even when he holds his phone up towards the darkening sky, nor do the little bars light up as he makes his way into the woods surrounding the park. Amara could’ve done that much, a cell tower nearby. He’s not sure if he’s still in Kansas, or even in the United States, for that matter. He has no plan for getting back to his family that doesn’t involve figuring out where the hell he is first,

“Help!” a woman’s voice calls through the trees, with the familiar mix of hush and distress that Dean recognizes as the ‘hiding from monsters, but still needing help’ voice. Could be genuine, he ponders for a moment, but could just as easily be a trap. All manner of creatures could have been drawn out by the failing sun, unaware they were passing so close to the sister of God and her favored hunter.

“Help me!” the woman calls again, her voice sharp with fear. Dean may be a sucker, but he’d rather be a sucker who errs on the side of not leaving a scared woman stranded in the forest at night. Even without monsters, the night is full of potential threats – roots to trip over, holes to fall in, coyotes that can eat you up as easily as any werewolf.

With a bone-deep sigh at his own gullibility, Dean pushes deeper into the woods until he reaches a small, dark clearing. Enough moonlight filters through the pines to illuminate the woman standing there, her back to him. Long blond hair tumbles over her shoulders and brushes against the back of her pale nightgown. Dean’s breath catches.

“Mom?” he says before he can stop himself, because who else could it be? He realizes his mistake before she even turns, though. Her hair is too curly, and she’s too tall. Still, something about her seems familiar, and when she turns towards the sound of his voice, he sees why.

“Please, I need help,” says Jess, _Sam’s_ Jess, standing in front of Dean looking exactly like she did the day Dean rode in on his black steed and scooped Sam up out of her life. A few days after that, she was dead, belly slashed and burned up on the ceiling. 

“Jess?” Dean asks, even though he knows it can’t be. It’s a ghost or a shifter. Best case, it’s a hallucination. What it’s definitely _not_ is Sam’s flesh-and-not-bled-out human girlfriend.

“How— how do you know my name?” Not-Jess asks suspiciously, which, nice touch, as is her cautious backing away. “Where am I? Where is this?” She keeps edging towards the far side of the clearing like a real girl, a scared girl, and Dean really doesn’t have the time or patience for Monsterpiece Theatre right now, he just doesn’t, okay?

“Listen, Jess or whatever you are,” Dean says, slowly inching his hand towards the silver knife in his boot as he takes a few steps in her direction. “Not that this isn’t a fun trip down memory lane. I mean, it’s a weird call going with Jess after all this time, but I get it, monster’s gotta do what a mon—”

Not-Jess’s fist connects with his nose with a crunch and a blinding flare of pain. Dean staggers back, blood dripping from his nostrils.

“Son of a _bitch_!” Dean says, as Not-Jess’s face goes blank. She blinks slowly as her mouth forms a surprised O. 

“Dean?” she says. “You’re Dean Winchester. Sam’s brother, Dean.”

“Ow, yeah, shit, fuck,” Dean says eloquently, pinching the bridge of his bleeding nose. Not-Jess hits like a fucking welterweight boxer, and he’s pretty sure that crunch was his nose breaking. “Son of a bitching piece of shit, you got lead in that fist, lady?”

Not-Jess doesn’t seem interested in his question, only in her own, which she fires at him double-barreled, bang bang, just like the song. “What happened? Where’s Sam? Where am I and how did I get here?” 

“Slow your roll, Shirley Temple,” Dean says. He wiggles the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath, and then pops it back into alignment with a quick jerk of his hand. He wipes his bloody fingers on his jeans and gives Not-Jess an appraising head-to-toe once over.

“Dean!” Not-Jess snaps at him.

“Look, whoever you are, I’ve had kind of a long day here,” Dean says. “Can we just skip over this bit and get to the part where I kill you?”

“I knew it!” Not-Jess says. “I _knew_ you were some kind of psycho murderer! Showing up at our apartment in the middle of the night like that, no call, with that weird story about your dad? That’s textbook psycho.”

Now it’s Dean’s turn to look startled, apparently. “What? How do you know about that? There’s no way—”

“And the way Sam talks about you, always so careful, never any details. Like he was afraid to say too much about you. He was scared of you, wasn’t he?” Probably-Not-Jess keeps talking, backing slowly away from Dean as her eyes scan the ground. She bends down quickly and comes back up with a big stick.

“Hey, look, that’s really not necessary,” Dean says, putting his hands up, all _Look? See? Harmless!_ Not-Jess-But-Okay-Possibly-Jess hefts the stick like a baseball bat. “You, uh. You didn’t happen to play softball in high school or anything, did you? Sammy never said.” 

Theoretically-Jess slices a perfect arc through the space between her and Dean with the stick. 

“What do you think?” she asks, hoisting the stick to her shoulder again. Batter up. 

“Hey, listen,” Dean starts, taking a step towards her. Jess lunges forward and swings the stick at him again, forcing him to hop backwards. “Whoa! What the fuck?”

“You’d better tell me how you got me here, psycho!” Jess yells at him, taking another swing. “What did you do to Sam? Where is—” As she focuses on Dean’s face, her arms suddenly drop, the stick held loosely. Some of the fight goes out of her. “You look like shit. Why do you look like shit?”

“Gee, thanks. Kindest words anybody’s ever said to me while _attacking me with a fucking stick!_ ”

“You said you were going to kill me!”

“I thought you were a monster!” Dean says.

“And I still think you’re a psycho,” Jess counters, “but something’s wrong. I know something’s wrong. Is it Sam? Is he hurt? Is that why you look like that?”

“He’s— I mean, he’s not— I always look like this!” Dean says. He puts a hand over his eyes and rubs his temples with his thumb and middle finger, muttering “Fucking celestial beings, how is this what I need most?” to himself. 

“Dean?” Jess’s stick hits the forest floor. “Dean, what’s happening?”

Dean sighs. “Okay. Yeah. Uh.” He sighs again. “So, that’s kind of a long story.”

“It’s really 2016,” Jess says, not for the first time since they’ve been driving.

“Yup,” Dean says. “Since January.”

“I died.” A dozen or so times, this question.

“’Fraid so.” A dozen variations, this answer.

“And monsters are real,” she says, for the hundredth time, probably. 

“Yeah,” Dean answers, also for the hundredth time, this time with a bonus, “Fucking nuts, right?”

“Nuts. Yeah. I hope so,” Jess says faintly, pressing her forehead to the window glass as black asphalt flies by underneath the tires of the hotwired car. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up.”

“You kinda did.”

Jess laughs, or at least makes a sound that could nearly be called a laugh. “I mean for real. I want to wake up for real, in a normal place, in my normal life.”

“This. Uh. Could be normal? Eventually?” Dean offers.

“Nothing about this is normal.”

“Normal’s just whatever you’re used to.”

“I died,” Jess says. “I came back from the dead. How is that normal?”

“Like I said, normal’s whatever you’re used to,” Dean says. 

“If that’s your normal, you lead some kind of fucked up life, Dean Winchester.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Jess sighs softly, fogging the window with her breath. When she tilts her head, the tip of her nose touches the glass and leaves a tiny circle. “This is so messed up.”

“It’ll feel better once you talk to Sam,” Dean says. 

“I feel like that might not be true,” she says. A new puff of steam clouds the glass.

Dean shrugs. He drives the stolen car and wishes for his baby’s steering wheel beneath his hands and anything like a good response to offer Jess. He wishes Sam would answer his phone, check his voicemail, or read any of Dean’s goddamn texts. 

Jess’s tone becomes more intense. “Dean. I feel like that’s not true.”

“Guess we’ll just have to see,” he finally says, when he suspects she might not drop the matter otherwise.

Miles pass in silence. Jess dozes for a while against the window, but then again, she might just be thinking with her eyes closed. Dean remembers how it felt, coming back from the dead: the crazy-happy idea of seeing Sam again, that fear of what kind of shape Dean might find him in, the trepidation over stepping back into a world that had carried on living without him. He feels it again now. In a sense, Dean and Jess were both delivered from death tonight.

Jess curls in on herself, tucking her long legs up closer to her body. Her nightgown—short and satin with spaghetti straps—doesn’t provide much coverage. Maybe it’s a mark of maturity, or maybe he’s just had that kind of a night, but the only thing all that exposed skin stirs in Dean is the realization of what an asshole he is. 

“Shit, you’re probably freezing,” he mutters, more to himself than to Jess. He shrugs off his jacket, switching hands on the wheel so he can peel it down his arms and drape it over Jess. She doesn’t open her eyes, but she drags the jacket over herself to provide better coverage with a soft “thanks.”

“Soon as we pass a Walmart or something we’ll stop,” Dean promises her. “Get you some real clothes.” Jess acknowledges him with a nod and a ghost-quick smile.

Impending dawn washes the sky steel blue before Dean spots a 24-hour Walmart. Jess seemed to slip into real sleep an hour or so ago, so Dean doesn’t wake her. He parks under a light post, far enough from the entrance for Jess to have privacy, but close enough that he could get back to the car quickly if he needs to. After thinking it over for a second, Dean scribbles out a note on the back of a receipt: _gone shopping burner phone in glove comp call # for Keith Moon!_

Dean tries to not look like a total creep as he browses the women’s section, working off his distant memory of Jess in her cropped Smurfs top, the hazy look he got at her in the dark before she busted his nose, and his side-eyed glances at her while driving. He grabs jeans, shirts, a green canvas jacket, and even a couple of sports bras and packs of underwear, just to cover the field. The final additions to his rapidly filling cart are a pack of socks and some sturdy-looking boots in three sizes. As Dean loads it onto the belt at the register, he adds a few different kinds of candy, two Cokes, and an energy drink. He pays for all of it using one of their scammed cards. 

When Dean gets back to the car, arms laden with bags, Jess is still asleep. He tries to open the door quietly, but she startles awake anyway, gasping and pulling at her seatbelt. Dean drops the bags and gets down low, holding up his hands.

“Jess, hey, hey,” Dean says, keeping his voice soft. “You’re alright. You’re in a car. You fell asleep.”

“What’s— what’s happening?” Jess asks. She still looks half asleep, her eyes scanning but not really seeing the car around her. “I was dreaming. I— Sam?” Jess’s eyes lock on Dean’s face. “You’re not Sam.”

“That’s right,” Dean agrees.

“You’re Dean. Sam’s brother Dean.”

“Yeah, I sure am.” Dean spreads his fingers and makes a quick jazz hands motion with both hands. Jess snorts.

“God, I really did get the smart Winchester, didn’t I?” she asks, letting go of the seatbelt and relaxing. 

Dean shrugs. “Well, probably, but you also got the ugly one.”

“Not sure I’d go that far,” Jess says.

“The less stunningly handsome one, then. Besides,” Dean says, picking up the bags and holding them where she can see them, “I’m the Winchester that brought you some real clothes. Hope they work alright for you.”

Jess makes gimme hands. “You’re an awesome Winchester. Anything to get out of this nightgown!” 

Dean gives Jess the bags and watches her rummage through them, discarding a few things after a quick glance at the sizes. The pile of wrong-sized things on the driver’s seat stays pretty small, though. Jess clears her throat, which Dean takes as a cue to turn around. He turns back around at her “alright, I’m decent,” to see her dressed in jeans, a soft thermal shirt, the canvas jacket, and a pair of boots.

“I think most of this stuff fits. You did a good job with the sizing.” She sounds surprised.

Dean shrugs. “Always been good at that kinda stuff, I guess.” 

He doesn’t explain why. He doesn’t talk about years of thrift shopping for Sammy, when sometimes girls clothes were what fit the kid’s skinny body. Doesn’t tell her how he cut out the tags so Sam wouldn’t know. Doesn’t mention the year spent folding Lisa’s laundry. Definitely doesn’t explain that he knows the many shapes of women, memorized with hands and eyes, and he can always guess within a size in either direction. Ninety percent accurate for tits, which he would never, ever tell Jess in a thousand years.

“I really appreciate it. If I’d known I was going to die and come back to life in what I was wearing that night, I would have put on something a little more practical,” Jess says.

“Least you _had_ clothes on.”

Jess grimaces. “I hadn’t even thought about that possibility.”

“Glad I could help,” Dean says. 

“Such a help.” Jess starts folding the clothes piled on the driver’s seat, and Dean squints at her in confusion. 

“What’re you doing?” he asks.

“So you can return them,” she says. 

“Yeah, that’s not really how it works,” Dean says, sliding into his seat and tossing the clothes and boots into the back. “The card I got these on ain’t exactly legit.”

Jess frowns. “Oh.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean shrugs. “It’s the life.”

“The life,” Jess says. “The hunter’s life. Because you hunt monsters.”

“Yeah. That life.”

Jess sighs and shakes her head. “Like you said. Fucking nuts.”

Dean gentle-punches her in the shoulder, not realizing until after she’s laughing that he probably should have been more careful. Not physically—she’s almost Dean’s height and has already proven her mean right hook—but psychologically, for both their sakes. Jess sounds pretty solid, but Dean can’t know how much she’s really taking the hunter thing to heart, or if she believes it at all. He can’t fall into some kind of easy familiarity with her, either, because while he’s had over a decade of Jess stories, she only had two years of sketchy, not-quite-true stories about Dean. This whole situation has to be screwing with her head. It’s screwing with his, anyway. Sam needs to pull himself out of the bottle and reply to Dean, ASAP.

“We should get back on the road,” Dean says, to fill the silence that follows Jess’s laugh. “Not far now.” 

Jess nods, but doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s working through the same thought process as Dean, realizing that they’re friendly, but not actually friends. Dean starts the car and heads towards Lebanon and Sam. 

“You live here?” Jess asks, staring at the admittedly underwhelming entrance to the bunker.

“It’s nicer than it looks,” Dean says. 

“It would have to be,” Jess says under her breath, quiet enough for Dean to pretend he didn’t hear it.

“Just wait,” Dean tells her. He unlocks the door with a loud clank, pushing it open. “Sammy? You here?”

Behind him, Jess inhales sharply. The bunker remains otherwise quiet. Dean frowns as he walks in and leans against the railing, shouting down, “Sam? You in here? Cas?”

“Shouldn’t he be here?” Jess asks, wide-eyed as she takes in the expansive war room below. 

“Might still be at that shitty little bar,” Dean says. “Sam! Samuel Winchester! Up and at ’em, Atom Ant.”

When no one answers, Dean starts down the stairs, Jess uncomfortably close behind him. He’d really like to be able to focus on her escalating tension, but the sinking feeling in the part of his gut devoted to his Sammy-sense is too distracting. The room has an acrid smell to it, not the usual old-book and fried onion scent of active occupation. 

“Sammy!” Dean shouts, edging slowly through the war room and towards the library.

“Dean,” Jess says softly. “Look.”

Dean’s eyes follow her pointing finger to a red spatter on the floor. As he scans the floor he notices more drips and smears and small, congealing puddles. Blood, definitely. At least four or five hours old, based on how much it’s dried at the edges.

“That’s blood,” Jess says.

“Yeah,” Dean says.

“Dean, it’s _blood_. Whose blood is it?”

“I don’t know yet,” Dean says. “Just keep a lid on it for a second.” He scans the room more thoroughly, which is when he notices the angel banishing sigil dried onto the wall. “Dammit, Cas.”

“What’s happening?” Jess asks, her voice getting louder. “What happened to Sam? Dean. Dean!”

“I said stow it!” Dean snaps at her. Jess recoils, but sets her jaw and narrows her eyes.

“No, actually, I won’t stow it,” she says. Her face flushes, hot red points on her cheeks. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Dean says, slamming his bag onto the table and reaching underneath it for the pistol he keeps hidden there. He thrusts it grip first at Jess.

“Oh, no,” Jess says, waving it away. “I don’t know the first thing about guns!”

“It ain’t that complicated,” Dean says. Jess takes the gun reluctantly, but has the sense to point it towards the ground. She scowls at him. He ignores it and draws his own gun.

“What am I even supposed to do?”

“If someone comes in who isn’t Sam, shoot ’em.”

“What!” Jess says.

“Stay here,” Dean says. “Watch the door.”

He can still hear her protesting as he slowly works his way through the parts of the bunker they use. It’s as empty as they left it. After several fruitless minutes of searching, Dean hears voices—one Jess’s, the other male—coming from the library. He sprints back to Jess just in time to find her holding Cas at gunpoint, her stance surprisingly good.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s a friend, alright?” Dean says. “Hey, Cas,” he adds, as Cas sweeps him into a fierce hug. 

“Dean!” Cas says, more or less into Dean’s neck. “You’re alive?”

Dean wriggles out of Cas’s enthusiastic grip to give him a halfhearted grin. “Yeah.”

“What about the bomb and the Darkness? What happened?” Cas asks. 

“I’ll tell you everything. Where is Sam?”

Cas frowns. “He’s not here.”

“What the hell is going on here? Who _are_ you?” Jess demands. Dean realizes she still has the gun trained on Cas with a degree of ease that suggests she wasn’t totally on the level about the ‘I don’t know the first thing about guns’ bit. 

Dean turns towards Jess slowly, telegraphing his movements. “So this is my friend, Castiel. Cas. He’s an angel, like I told you about. Not a dick, though. Cas, this is Jess.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Cas says, a bit stiffly, as though he’s not sure this is really the right time for meeting new people and disapproves of Dean bringing someone into the bunker at such a moment. 

“Jess Moore,” Dean clarifies.

“Jess Moore?” Cas repeats, his formality dropping away, replaced with a look of slightly baffled wonder. “Jessica Moore. Sam’s Jess.”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Dean says.

Cas gives Jess a little head nod that reminds Dean of a bow. “It’s an honor to meet you, Jess. Sam rarely speaks of you, but when he does, it’s quite highly.” 

“Uh, thanks?” Jess says, lowering the gun. She holds it loosely at her side, so Dean steps forward and takes it from her dangling hand. He sets the gun on the table. Jess looks confused more than anything else, her eyes darting between Cas and Dean like she doesn’t know what’s happening and isn’t sure who to ask.

“Cas, what happened here? Where’s Sam?” Dean asks. “He’s not answering his phone. There’s blood on the floor. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Cas admits. “We came back here. There was a woman waiting for us. She blasted me away. I don’t know who she was. I don’t know what happened to Sam.”

“Okay, well, the bunker’s empty, so they’ve obviously left here,” Dean says. “You said woman – not an angel, not a demon, a— a human?”

“She was human,” Cas says. 

“A human woman broke into your bunker and _took_ Sam?” Jess asks. “Is that something just anyone could do with a lockpick?”

Dean shakes his head. “We’ve got the only key, and the whole place is warded out the ass. How the hell _did_ she get in?”

“Wards. That’s— that’s magic, right?” Jess asks. 

“In part,” Cas says. “They act as a safeguard.”

“Like a forcefield,” Dean says. “Keeps the bad stuff out. Keeps everything out.”

“Except this woman,” Jess presses. “And she’s not an angel like Cas.” She looks at Cas, who nods. “And she’s not a—I can’t believe I’m even saying this—a demon, either.” Dean and Cas both nod. She raises one eyebrow and tilts her head in a meaningful look. “Okay, so that means she had to get here somehow, right? She didn’t fly. She didn’t _bamf_ her way in like Nightcrawler.”

Dean can practically feel the lightbulb switch on in his brain. “Traffic cams!” 

He immediately sits down at the table and drags the laptop in front of him, pulling up the local traffic cameras. The tension from moments ago breaks smoothly, Jess moving in to stand by his right shoulder, and Cas watching over his left from a respectable distance. Jess looks a little too comfortable with the whole camera-hacking situation for a supposedly wholesome girl from 2004. Trust Sam to somehow find the hottest nerd in existence.

Grainy black and white footage pops up onto the screen. Dean tabs between windows, traffic cameras in all possible directions, rewinding through the night. Lebanon’s streets are mostly empty, save for a pickup truck towing a horse trailer and another, older truck weaving unsteadily away from Lebanon’s only bar. DUI doesn’t point to a kidnapper.

“There!” Jess jabs a finger at the screen. “Black SUV.”

“Cas?” Dean asks.

“It fits the timeline,” Cas says.

Dean nods. “And nothing else on the road.” He zooms in on the plate. “I’ll just run this and—”

Jess’s stomach growls loudly. Her cheeks redden, which surprises Dean after all the events of the past several hours.

“I’ll run the plate,” Cas says, nudging Dean out of his chair. “You should cook for Jess. I’m not good at anything but canned soup and toast.”

“Cas, man, you burn every slice of bread you stick in the toaster,” Dean says.

“My point stands,” Cas says, with another firm nudge. Dean takes the unsubtle hint and vacates the chair. Cas is certainly more than capable of running a license plate. Dean claps him on the shoulder in silent thanks; he isn’t quite up to verbally expressing his gratitude yet. Maybe when they get Sam back.

“Does this place have a real kitchen?” Jess asks.

“Oh yeah,” Dean says. “We keep it stocked, too.”

“Good. I’m starving,” Jess admits.

Dean walks towards the kitchen, Jess behind him. “So, are you the one who put Sammy onto the rabbit food full time?”

“Rabbit food?”

“You know. California vegetarian stuff. Salads. Kale.”

Jess snorts. “Uh, no. Sam was already weird about his food when I met him. Picky in a weird way. I thought he might have food allergies, you know?” 

Dean nods. “Sounds like him.”

“Sometimes, though, it’s like he forgot about that,” she says. They reach the kitchen, and Dean points Jess towards a seat. 

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah. He’d just— it’s like he was practically inhaling his food. Healthy, shitty, didn’t matter. Like he was starving.”

“He missed a few meals growing up,” Dean admits, face hot with shame. “Sometimes more than a few.”

“Food insecurity,” Jess says.

“I don’t know that he’s insecure about it,” Dean says.

Jess shakes her head.“No, it means he didn’t always know where his next meal was coming from.” 

“Ah,” Dean says. What else can he say? He tried his damnedest, but sometimes a box of generic cereal or knock-off mac ’n cheese was all they could manage. Some days, even that much would have felt like an embarrassment of riches.

Jess sits quietly for a while, as Dean starts slapping together some hamburger patties. Enough for him, Jess, Cas if he’s so inclined, and Sam. He’ll be hungry if they find him. When they find him. 

“Cheddar or American?” Dean asks over his shoulder. “Or, I dunno. Check the fridge and see if we still have pepper jack. Ziplock, bottom shelf. Might be under a case of beer.”

“Why would it be under the beer?” Jess asks as she moves towards the fridge. She pauses in front of the admittedly confusing array of doors.

“Big door, far right,” Dean says, gesturing with a spatula. “Sam thinks he’s hiding it from me.”

Jess opens the fridge and rummages through it for a moment before finding the ziplock bag of cheese. “You were right. Under the beer. I didn’t know Sam liked pepper jack enough to hide it.”

“Maybe it’s that food insecurity thing you were talking about,” Dean offers. Jess tosses him the cheese. He catches it before turning back to the griddle. “How do you like your burger?”

“Medium.”

Dean smiles, flipping the patties and starting to layer two slices of cheese on each one. “Guess Sam didn’t always have terrible taste in women.”

“But he does now?” Jess asks. Her voice wobbles a little. “Oh. _Oh._ Is he— does he have a girlfriend? I didn’t even ask. I mean, I guess I just hoped—”

“Settle down, Goldilocks,” Dean says. He transfers the patties to the waiting buns, then sits down across from Jess, setting a plate in front of her. “Sam doesn’t have a girlfriend. He hasn’t even hooked up with anybody for who knows how long, as far as I’ve seen.”

“But he’s been with other women. Of course he has. Since— since I died,” Jess says.

“Well, yeah, but not like—” Dean sighs, staring down at his own burger for a minute, considering. “Hey, half the time I tease him for living like a monk, the other half, I’m just glad he’s not doing anything stupid. There’s been a few women, sure. Most of ’em were bad news. Like, _bad_ -bad news.”

“Anyone serious?” Jess asks, looking like she isn’t sure she really wants the answer. Dean breaths slowly out his nose while he thinks, really thinks, about what to say to her.

“Look,” he finally begins, but Jess cuts him off before he can say anything else.

“Uh-uh,” she says, nostrils flaring and cheeks suddenly burning pink. “I don’t need the gentle version or the sanitized version. I want the truth.”

Dean smiles despite himself. “You can’t—”

“So help me, Dean Winchester, if you tell me I can’t handle the truth, I’m going to—”

“Alright, alright!” Dean says, putting his hands up in surrender. “I just don’t know that it’s my story to tell, ’s all.”

Jess straightens her back and lifts her chin, and Dean is struck again by her height, but also by how much her expression reminds him of Sam. Sam, who he misses with a gut-punch of fear and worry. Sam, hurt and dragged off by some mystery woman. Sam, who has no idea that the girl he loved enough to abandon Dean and their father and the only life he’d ever known just to get back to her, is alive again. _Sam._

“I died for this family, or at least because of it,” Jess says. Her tone is cold and careful. She looks straight at Dean, but somehow doesn’t meet his eyes. “I think I deserve to know what’s happened to this family since then.”

“It ain’t a pretty story,” Dean warns.

“So?” Jess arches one eyebrow. In spite of her chilly tone, her cheeks still burn red.

“So,” Dean agrees. “Maybe it’s easier if I don’t try to tell it in order.”

“Whatever works.”

Dean nods. “Okay. So… uh, once upon a time, Sam met a girl named Ruby.”

“A werewolf _and_ a demon?”

“Right? Kid’s a magnet for the freaky types.”

“And his first kiss was a… what, exactly?”

“Kitsune. They eat pituitary glands.”

“He has to have been with someone normal at some point.”

“Besides you, you mean?”

“Yes, besides me. Nobody’s luck can be that bad, can it?”

“Well…”

“He hit a dog?”

“Don’t even get me started on that one.”

“Wow.” Jess shakes her head. Somewhere over the course of Dean recounting all of Sam’s misguided or downright disturbing encounters with women, she and Dean both managed to finish their burgers. 

“Like I said. Freak magnet,” Dean says. Jess presses her lips together into a disapproving line. Dean frowns right back at her. “What?”

“What about you?” Jess asks.

“What about me?” Dean says. “I’m not exactly the relationship type.”

“No?”

“Just the once. Didn’t stick.”

“Sounds like you’re pretty involved in Sam’s relationships,” Jess says.

“He needs someone to look out for him,” Dean says. “He’s made some pretty shitty decisions.”

“And none of that has anything to do with you?” Jess asks. “You killed that kit-whatever-she-was. You dragged that poor woman with the dog back into it just to punish Sam for—”

“Hey! That’s not how it went down.”

“And as far as the demon goes? Sounds like he didn’t start down that road until you died,” Jess says. 

“Oh, so it’s my fault?” Dean asks. He presses his fists against his thighs to keep himself from slamming at least one onto the table.

“Fault?” Jess shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not, but it sounds to me like you’re always involved. Pushing Sam here, pulling him there. Making decisions for him.”

“Sometimes he needs—”

“Lying to him about those decisions. Manipulating him,” Jess plows on over Dean’s protests. “Do you always get what you want from him?”

“I didn’t want any of this,” Dean protests.

“You wanted him with you,” Jess says. “You wanted him to leave with you, and he left. I never saw him again. You show up in our apartment in the middle of the night, and that’s it. He’s gone.”

“I brought him back,” Dean says. “He came back to you.”

“Too late, though. Didn’t matter. You’d already dragged him back into this life.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be at the cost of yours,” Dean says.

“No?” Jess smiles, but only with her mouth. 

“No.”

“Can you look me in the eyes and swear to me you didn’t feel at least a little relief that Sam was with you again, no matter what it cost?” Jess asks.

Dean wants to look her square in the eyes, but he can’t. He wasn’t happy Jess died. She’d seemed cool—which the last 12 hours have definitely confirmed—and Sam was obviously nuts about her. And seeing Sammy like that, so torn up and furious with himself? No, Dean didn’t feel anything positive about that.

But having Sam beside him in the Impala, the impossible length of him stretched out in the passenger seat, was the first time Dean had felt anywhere close to normal for three years. The car smelled like smoke for days, and it should’ve turned Dean’s stomach. Instead, he just felt grateful to have his brother back, no matter the cost.

“That’s what I thought,” Jess says softly. “Sam was never going to be able to have something normal. This, or something like it, was always going to happen.”

“The Winchester curse,” Dean says, but Jess shakes her head.

“I don’t think so,” Jess says. An expression crosses her face that Dean can’t identify. Maybe Sam would know, but Dean’s cumulative firsthand Jess knowledge doesn’t even fill a full day yet. He realizes then that he’d like it to, though.

“What is it, then?” Dean asks. Jess hesitates, and in that hesitation is derailed by Cas rushing into the kitchen. 

“I’ve located the vehicle,” he says.

Jess stares at the Impala like she’s just been reunited with a long-lost sibling. She holds out a hand, looming briefly at Dean for permission before lightly running a hand over Baby’s glossy black paint.

“I only saw it out the window before,” she says in a hushed voice. 

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Dean prompts. Jess nods in immediate agreement.

“Almost every story Sam ever told me happened here,” she says. She leans in the open window and touches a fingertip to the little plastic army man wedged into the ashtray, smiling. 

“Thought he didn’t tell you much about us,” Dean says.

“Not much, no, but I know all about this car,” Jess says. “He told me his father was a salesman, that you two grew up in this car. It always made me sad, thinking about him growing up without a home. He never really talked about that part of it, but every little story—books he read, pranks you played on each other—was always set right here.”

Dean nods. “Yeah. Makes sense. Sammy, he always wanted more than this,” He says. “More than this life, this car. More than being stuck with me. That’s why he left, so he could have more than this.”

“I don’t think he wanted more than you,” Jess says. “The life, yes. Not you.”

“Says the dead girl to the accused psycho”

“Like I said, his details were pretty sketchy. A girl could draw some psycho-oriented conclusions.”

“And now?” Dean asks.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with you being a psycho,” Jess says.

“Well, what, then?”

Jess just smiles enigmatically and turns her attention back to the army man.

The driver starts out less than helpful, but Cas quickly puts him right with a couple of headbutts to the face. Dean calls him off before he can do any real harm, aside from putting the fear of… well, not God, but at least the fear of _Cas_ into the guy. 

“For an angel, he’s kind of a badass,” Jess says. 

“Yeah, but don’t let him hear you say it,” Dean says. “Dude doesn’t need the ego boost.”

As the driver starts to spill everything he knows about the nameless blonde who stole Sammy, Jess shakes her head. “Maybe not, but damn. Avenging angels, huh?”

They have a lot of pieces of the puzzle, but Dean still doesn’t see the whole picture. A private plane. A country veterinarian. A duffel bag full of cash. A tall man with a gunshot wound in his leg. The plane and the vet are the next two logical steps, and the vet’s easy enough to find. The veterinary clinic is empty, though, so Dean stops at a nearby roadside stand advertising berries and coffee, Cas parking his truck beside the Impala. Cas handles purchasing coffee for all three of them while Dean makes the call to the airport to get more information on the blonde’s plane. When he hits a roadblock, which feels like one too many, he returns to the small table where Cas and Jess sit with three cups of coffee and one extremely large slice of strawberry pie on a styrofoam plate. Jess, plastic fork in hand, has already made a dent in the pie. Dean raises his eyebrows at the single slice. 

“Sorry,” she says. A ruby red smear of strawberry and a few crumbs cling to her upper lip. “We got it to share.”

“I explained that you have strong feelings about pie, but Jess expressed some concern about the price,” Cas explains.

Jess shrugs. “I don’t exactly have a job. Or a bank account. Or a valid ID.”

“We can take care of all of that,” Dean says. “Don’t worry about the money.”

“I just thought, you know, with the credit cards.”

Dean shakes his head. “We’ve been running those scams our whole lives. It’s part of the hunter gig. I may not be a genius, but I ain’t as dumb as I look. I know how to play it smart, whatever you might’ve heard from Sam.”

Jess puts her fork down as she frowns. “Sam never said anything like that about you.”

“Well, like you told me before, he didn’t say much about me, period,” Dean says. “Enough to make you think I was a psycho murderer.”

“Hey, I’d just woken up in my nightgown, alone, in the middle of the forest, and the only other time I’d met you, you’d broken into my apartment,” Jess says. 

“She has a point, Dean. That does seem like inappropriate behavior,” Cas says. 

“Thanks, buddy, I appreciate the help,” Dean says. Cas gives him a grimacing smile and drinks his coffee.

“But I don’t think you’re dumb, and neither does Sam,” Jess says. 

Dean chuckles. “Yeah, maybe not then. He’s gone back and forth on it over the years. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Dean has a penchant for underselling his own intelligence,” Cas tells Jess. 

“Yeah, I kinda noticed,” Jess says.

“Anyway,” Dean says, trying to steer them back towards the important topic here, “I ran the tail number that what’s-his-face gave us. The plane that evil Elsa flew in on? Has diplomatic registry.”

“Shit,” Jess says. “So they couldn’t give you any information.”

Dean nods. “Flight plans are sealed, unless you want to hack the state department.”

“I’m starting to change my mind about the Nightcrawler thing,” Jess says, shaking her head. “Maybe we’re dealing with the X-Men after all. Why would a diplomat take Sam? How would they even know who he is, let alone where to find him?”

Cas suddenly comes to attention, his eyes following a white SUV. “Dean.”

Dean turns in time to see the veterinary clinic logo on the side of the SUV. He, Jess, and Cas ditch their coffee and the—sadly only half-finished—pie and make their way quietly on foot down the clinic’s driveway. The vet, Dr. Gregory Marion, is too occupied by the heavy stack of dog food bags in his arms to notice Dean slinking up behind him. Dean presses his gun to the vet’s back.

“Dr. Marion,” Dean says, “How about you let us in?”

Dean isn’t a total ass, even if the guy did help the people who took Sam. He glances back at Cas and nods at the bags of dog food, and Cas takes them from Dr. Marion, who unlocks the office with shaking hands. Once the food bags are on a table and Dr. Marion is in a chair facing Dean, Cas, and Jess, Dean dives right into the interrogation portion of the program.

“Yesterday, a blonde woman came to your office,” he begins, and as Dr. Marion starts to protest, Dean gestures with the gun. Dr. Marion immediately closes his mouth. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. She had someone with her. Big guy, long hair. He was injured.”

“If you put the gun away, I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Dr. Marion says. 

Dean exchanges a look with Cas, who shrugs. He looks to Jess instead. 

“Not like you need the gun to get information out of him,” she says. “Cas’s method worked just fine with the last guy.” Dr. Marion’s eyes widen a litte, but Dean can’t help but smile at how pleased with himself Cas looks about Jess’s comment. 

“He had been shot,” Dr. Marion says. 

“We gathered as much,” Dean says.

“The bullet didn’t hit the femoral artery, but he was still bleeding badly,” Dr. Marion explains. “The lady— she wanted me to take the bullet out, suture the wound.” 

Jess tenses, her hands tightening into fists so hard her knuckles go white. Dean wants to comfort her, but he’s angry enough on his own behalf. This sonofabitch put his hands on Sam and did nothing to really help him.

“So you dug the bullet out of his leg, no questions asked?” Dean demands, arms crossed to prevent himself from punching the guy in the face.

“She offered me a hundred grand,” Dr. Marion says. Jess exhales sharply through her nose.

“So that’s your price to help a kidnapper? Maybe even a murderer? A hundred grand, that’s all?” she asks through her clenched teeth. 

“Student loans are a bitch, okay?” Dr. Marion says. At that, Cas stalks furiously towards the man, and Dean has to grab him by the arm and the back of his coat to stop him. 

“Cas! Cas, don’t hurt him,” Dean says. “Not yet.”

“All right, look,” Dr. Marion says, flinching away from Cas. “She didn’t give me her name. When we were done, the driver bailed, and then some other chick shows up and they all drive away.”

“And that’s all you know?” Jess asks.

“Totally,” the vet says.

While Dean is still occupied with holding Cas back, Jess strides forward and suckerpunches Dr. Marion, knocking his head backward into his desk. Blood pours from his nose. Jess casually wipes her hand on her jeans and leans in close, her face close to Dr. Marion’s bleeding face. 

“Let’s try that again,” Jess says. 

“I have her phone number!” Dr. Marion quickly answers. “Look, I don’t know where they are, but she called me a few hours ago, asking about the sedative I gave the guy!”

“ _Sam_ ,” Jess says. “His name is Sam. 

“Sam. I’m sorry. The sedative I gave Sam,” Dr. Marion says. “So… I’ve got her phone number.”

“Yeah, probably should’ve led with that,” Dean says. 

After the kidnapping English bitch hangs up on Dean, he snaps the phone in half in rage. Jess and Cas both look just as angry, even without hearing the woman’s side of the conversation. Dean stalks back to the Impala, Jess at his side and Cas on his heels, and they’re peeling out of the gravel parking lot next to the fruit stand within mere moments. 

“I’m gonna kill her when we find her. Bare-handed,” Jess says. “So how do we find her?”

“We’ve got her number,” Dean answers. “Let’s head back to the bunker, and we’ll put a trace on it.”

Jess frowns, but nods her head. “If that’s—”

A white blur flies from a cross street and rams into the back of the Impala, sending them spinning. Dean manages to get control of the car again, slamming on the brakes, but Jess’s head has already bounced off the window. She falls sideways, pinned in place at the hips by the lap belt, her head coming to rest on Dean’s thigh. For a second, he’s frozen, hand hovering over her head, afraid to touch her, let alone move her. He hears Cas’s shaky “Dean?” from the back seat, and that snaps him back into action. 

Dean gently brushes Jess’s hair away from her face. Her skin is pale, eyes closed, with a trickle of blood running down her forehead. When Dean carefully sits her upright again, she slumps over in her seat, shards of window glass in her hair and on her clothes like tiny diamonds. He looks back at Cas, who reaches forward to grab Jess’s shoulders, steadying her and holding her up. 

“Cas?” Dean says.

“She’s unconscious, but there’s no serious damage,” Cas answers. “What happened? Who hit us?”

“Could be an accident,” Dean says, undoing his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. “Could be our mystery Brit or somebody working for her.” He cranes his neck to look at the car that hit him, an off-white older model SUV from what he can tell. “Help her. I’ll be back.”

“Dean,” Cas says in warning.

“I’m just taking a look at the damage,” Dean says. He gets out of the car and walks around to the back of the Impala. The rear side panel and fender are crumpled, the bumper dented at the corner. 

“Dean Winchester, I presume,” says an unfamiliar voice with an English accent. Dean turns to face her. She sounds less snooty than their kidnapper and is dressed practically in black, her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. Her arms are tucked behind her back, presumably ready to grab a weapon. “You should be more careful with your location services on your phone.”

A muscle jumps in Dean’s jaw. Every instinct in him screams to attack now. She’s clearly ready for it. This is why she’s here, to put a stop to Dean’s search for Sam. He makes himself be still. He keeps his voice even.

“Are you one of ’em?” he asks her. He watches the way she shifts her weight from foot to foot, sizing her up. 

“I’m one of them,” she answers, smug smile curling one side of her mouth. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. He walks slowly towards her, grabbing her by the lapels of her black coat. She doesn’t flinch. She barely blinks. A professional, then. This is about to get bloody. “You tell me where my brother is, and I might take it easy on you.”

“Oh, please don’t,” the woman says. She brings her fists up in a swift sharp motion, breaking Dean’s hold on her. He blocks her jabs at his face, noting the brass knuckles on both her hands. She ducks low, catching him in the stomach, but as he folds forward, he grabs her in a headlock. She quickly breaks free, twisting his arm around his back with a sickening crunch and pop that tells him his shoulder is dislocated, though adrenaline is already preventing him from feeling the pain as he’s knocked to the ground. 

Dean tries to regain his footing as he watches the woman trade blows with Cas, striking him across the face with her brass knuckles. Cas falls forward, catching himself with his hands before his face hits the blacktop. He spits out a mouthful of blood. In the light of the afternoon sun, Dean notes the faint glow of runes or some other kind of sigils on the brass knuckles. He reaches for his gun, but finds nothing. 

“Looking for this?” the woman asks, holding his gun up like she’s dangling bait for a hungry dog. She delicately sets Dean’s gun on the Impala’s trunk and spreads her arms in challenge. “So, round two. Anyone?”

Dean rises to the challenge, every movement reminding him that his shoulder needs to be popped back into place if he’s going to have any real strength in that arm. He and the woman trade blows, but she’s younger, she was braced for the crash, and she’s aided by mystically souped-up brass knuckles. With each hit, Dean becomes more worried that he won’t make it out of this. One strong strike sends him backwards into the SUV. His head and injured shoulder collide with the side of the vehicle, his vision greys out, and he crumples to the ground, where he hears, rather than sees, Cas and the woman continue fighting.

Cas grunts, and something loud and metallic clatters to the asphalt – his angel blade, probably. Dean is dimly aware of the sound of metal and knuckles on flesh, but he can’t blink his vision clear, let alone push himself up. The loud thud of a body hits the ground; Dean knows that’s Cas, but there’s fuck-all he can do about it besides lie there and listen. 

A gun cocks—Dean’s 1911 Colt; he’d know that sound anywhere—and the woman says, “You know, I would’ve thought for two strapping lads like yourselves, you would’ve lasted a tad longer.”

Dean rolls onto his side. Beside him, Cas does the same. The woman stands over them, Dean’s own gun pointed at him. She smirks, takes on a jovial, performative tone with her relaxed stance, confident she has this in the bag.

“But hey, you know what they say,” she continues. “Good things come to those—”

A gun fires, and the woman’s forehead explodes, spraying bone, brain, and blood all over Dean, Cas, the SUV behind them, and the ground in front of them. She drops to her knees with a startled expression, eyes still blinking. Dean thinks, briefly and horribly, of a chicken with its head cut off, and then the woman falls forward onto her face, unmoving. 

Dean drags himself up to sitting, supporting his shoulder. Behind the dead woman, he sees Jess, holding the gun Dean had given her back in the bunker, frozen in a perfect isosceles stance. She still has glass and drying blood in her long, blonde hair and a dark smear of more blood on the sleeve of her green canvas jacket, but her jaw is set and her eyes are cold and bright. She looks as beautiful and vengeful as any angel Dean has ever seen.

“Thanks, Jess,” he says, for lack of anything else to say.

“Anytime,” she says. 

As Jess lowers the gun—Dean hadn’t noticed her pick it up again in the bunker, shame on him—her hands start to tremble. Dean uses the SUV to haul himself up to his feet, then limps over to her and puts a hand on her back to steady her. To his surprise, she folds herself into his chest, wrapping her arms around him, her face pressed to the buttons of his flannel shirt. He hugs her back as best he can with one dislocated shoulder and lets her shake for a few minutes. Jess is tall enough that Dean can’t quite rest his chin on her head. He looks past her at Cas, who regards the dead woman with the kind of removed interest with which he used to regard all humanity, Dean included. 

Eventually, Jess stops shaking. Dean pretends not to notice her wiping her eyes as she pulls away. Cas has muscled the dead woman’s body into the off-white SUV, so Dean goes over and helps him roll it into the roadside brush. They grab her cell phone from her pocket; she doesn’t have a wallet, passport, or any other form of ID on her. Awkwardly, Dean helps gather branches with one arm to hide the vehicle. Cas squints at him.

“You’re injured,” Cas says.

“It’s fine. Just need to pop my shoulder back in,” Dean says. 

Cas lays his hands on Dean’s shoulder. Dean feels the immediate uncanny sensation of the ball sliding neatly back into the socket. He rotates his shoulder and flexes his fingers. He still feels numb, but that’s probably the adrenaline more than any specific injury. If anything, he might now have slightly more range in the joint than he’s had in the last few years.

“Thanks, man,” Dean tells Cas. “Can you give Jess a quick check?”

Cas nods, and walks over to Jess, currently sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, feet resting on the blacktop. Blood and tears have left tracks down her pale face, but she’s not crying now. After a gentle touch from Cas, she isn’t bleeding anymore, either, and her color improves slightly. She gives Cas a shaky smile and murmurs something that looks like “thanks.” 

Dean moves to stand beside Jess, waiting for her to speak. When she doesn’t, Dean finally says, “We found her cell phone. Last phone call was made from Aldrich, Missouri. We’re guessing Sam’s probably around there.”

“Okay,” Jess says quietly. “That’s good.”

“Are you okay?” Dean asks. She flashes him a brief, forced smile. “Yeah, didn’t figure.”

“Don’t tell Sam,” she asks. “Please.”

“Don’t tell him what? That you saved me and Cas’s asses? Jess, he’ll be proud of you!”

Jess shakes her head. “Don’t tell him I shot that woman. That I— that I killed her.”

Dean narrows his eyes and tips his head to the side as he processes what she’s saying. “Jess, are you— do you think he’s gonna think less of you because you kept that woman from killing us?”

She shakes her head again, her eyes starting to go glossy with unshed tears. “No. He won’t think of me the same, though.”

Dean sighs and draps into a squat in front of her, ignoring his protesting knees, so he’s slightly below her eye level. He gently takes one of her dangling hands in his and is surprised when she squeezes his hand in response. 

“Listen,” he says. “He’s not gonna think of you the same no matter what, and that’s okay.” A tear rolls down Jess’s cheek, but Dean soldiers on. “Sam’s not the same. He can’t think of anything the same way he did ten years ago or, hell, even a year ago. Too much has happened to him. To you. To all of us. And yeah, he’s got a version of you in his head, same way you’ve got a version of him in yours, and it ain’t gonna be the same as the reality of either one of you.”

“Maybe it would’ve been better if I hadn’t come back,” Jess says. 

“Hey, don’t say that,” Dean says. “Of course it wouldn’t be better.”

“But then he could keep that version of me alive in his head, and it would be good. _She_ would be good. Better than the real thing.”

Dean squeezes Jess’s hand. “Hey, I’d take the real thing over the fake thing every time. Real you is a badass. Real you just saved my life.” He chuckles. “Real you is also a big fat liar. ‘Don’t know anything about guns’ my ass.”

Jess laughs. “I might have taken some shooting lessons when I first moved to California. Maybe, uh, about twelve weeks of lessons. The apartment building I moved into was _really_ shady. I bought a little 9mm Luger. Sam didn’t know. I kept it in an empty Tampax box in the bottom of my nightstand.”

Dean can’t help it, he bursts out laughing. “That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I figured he wouldn’t look in it,” Jess says. “He always got really weird anytime somebody mentioned guns. I thought he really hated them.”

“Oh, he did. He hated a lot of stuff about our life,” Dean says, “but he knew what to do with ’em. Kid was a better shot than me from about age twelve, especially at long range. Eyes like a damn hawk.” He grins at Jess and gives her hand another squeeze. 

“Can I tell you something?”

“What?” she asks.

“I bet you ten bucks he knew about that gun.”

Jess smiles and shakes her head slightly. “What? How? Why wouldn’t he have said anything?”

“I mean, for one, he would’ve had to admit he went snooping in the Tampax box in your nightstand,” Dean points out. “But he also would’ve wanted you to do whatever it took to feel safe. For him, it was getting away from that stuff. Smart as he is, as _good_ as he is, he probably understood that the stuff that made you feel safe and the stuff that made him feel safe weren’t always the same thing.”

“He is good,” Jess agrees.

“Best person I’ve ever known,” Dean says. “Even when things got bad, Sam was always still… Sammy. And Sammy’s good. At his core. In his heart.”

“He’s really important to you,” Jess says. Dean snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Don’t try to make this into a chick flick moment,” Dean says. 

“Oh, I think it’s a chick flick moment,” Jess says.

“You need me to get Cas back over here? ’Cause you’re clearly in shock.”

Jess laughs. “Fine. No moment, chick flick or otherwise. Dean Winchester has a heart of stone.”

“Steel,” Dean says, grinning at her. “It’s manlier than stone.”

“Steel-hearted Dean Winchester, who is still holding my hand,” Jess says.

Dean doesn’t so much snatch his hand away as gently disentangle it, though still to Jess’s great amusement. Dean finds himself thinking about how much he likes the way her eyes tilt when she smiles a real smile, how it reminds him of Sam’s eyes. He likes the sprinkling of moles across her face. He wants to touch them, he realizes, which is so far into the realm of wrong that he stands abruptly, turning away from Jess.

“Cas, we need to go,” Dean says to Cas, who has probably been ready to go for ten minutes. When Dean turns back to glance at Jess, her face is closed off again, the smile dimmed. That’s for the best. Trauma bonding with the love of his brother’s life is one thing, but Dean has a long list of places his mind isn’t allowed to go, and thoughts like that about Jess, well… they’re not the worst thing on the list, but they’re plenty bad. 

The Impala starts and drives just fine, not that they have any clearer idea where they’re going. The dead woman hadn’t offered any clues beyond the phone. The best Dean can figure, the woman who took Sam can’t be that far away. Her attack dog reached them too quickly after the phone call at the vet’s for them to be more than a half hour in any direction. That’s the problem, though: _any_ direction. Whichever way Dean heads could bring him closer to Sam or take him farther away. Loathe as Dean is to admit it, they have to go back to the bunker, use what they do know to search the area better. They don’t have the equipment with them. 

“We’re gonna have to go back to the bunker. We need to check surveillance footage for the area,” Dean says. “Cas, if I drop you back at your truck, maybe you can start calling around and asking hotels?”

“Yes, of course,” Cas says. 

When they park beside the truck, Cas puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder, a reassuring pat, before he climbs out of the Impala. 

“I’ll call you if I find anything,” Cas assures Dean.

“Same,” Dean says. “And hey man, be careful, alright? We still don’t know who we’re dealing with.”

“Only if you promise to do the same,” Cas says.

“I’m always careful,” Dean says. Cas peers back at him with a dubious squint, but he doesn’t argue. He just sighs and gets in his truck. Dean waits until Cas is on his way before backing out of the space and pointing the Impala towards home. 

After several miles of driving in silence, Jess asks, “Do you think they’re going to hurt him?”

“Who, Cas?” Dean says. “Nah. He’s a tough sonofabitch.”

Jess shakes her head. “No. Sam. Are they going to hurt him?”

The edges of Dean’s vision go white, his heart pounding. It’s the question he has been trying to avoid since they realized Sam had been taken. Even with the gunshot, Dean knows the woman took Sam alive, and the stop at the vet’s indicates she wants to _keep_ him alive, at least for a while. He exhales loudly as he tries to keep it together long enough to respond.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, probably. I don’t think they killed him, but yeah, I think they’re probably hurting him.”

Jess doesn’t say anything, and Dean doesn’t turn to look at her, because they both need to keep their shit together right now. Instead, Dean stares straight ahead, eyes fixed on the road. The setting sun fills the car with red-orange light that glints off the instrument cluster and bathes Dean’s hands in a strange glow. Beside him, Jess sniffles. Dean still doesn’t look at her. He doesn't try to comfort her or reassure her. No reason to introduce lies to the equation at this point. 

Dean sits down in front of the laptop, pulling up cameras in the vicinity of where the kidnapper’s hitwoman slammed into the Impala. Jess goes into the kitchen and comes back with two bottles of beer, one of which she sets on the table next to the laptop. She takes a swig from the other. 

“This place got a shower?” she asks.

Dean nods. “Yeah. Down that hall, past the bedrooms.” He gestures. “Keep left. You’ll pass a bunch of doors. You’re gonna want to open ’em, but don’t. Trust me. Bathroom’s at the end.” 

“What’s behind the doors?”

“Weird shit,” Dean says. “Some, we can’t even get open, so we leave ’em be.”

“This place is kind of messed up,” Jess says.

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Dean agrees. Jess stands behind him a little longer, tapping her nails against her beer bottle, _tink tink tink_ , finally sighing softly before turning to walk in the direction Dean pointed her. He realizes after she leaves that he probably needs to get her set up in a room. Feels like an overstep to stick her in Sam’s, but they have empty bedrooms aplenty. 

He’ll worry about it once they find Sam, he decides. Maybe it won’t even be an issue, once the two of them see each other. Dean turns his focus back towards the traffic cameras. 

Jess doesn’t come back for a while, during which time Dean fruitlessly searches through dozens of traffic cams. When she finally comes back into the war room, she’s in a grey dead guy robe, her long hair fanned out over her shoulders and still dripping wet.

“These robes? Are amazing,” she says, taking the seat next to Dean. 

“Men of Letters had expensive taste,” Dean says. “You should try the scotch.”

“As soon as we find Sam,” Jess says. 

“Yeah, we’ll break out a bottle to celebrate,” Dean says. 

“Any luck?” Jess nods her head at the screen. 

Dean shakes his head. “Bupkis so far.”

“What about Cas? Anything?”

“I was just about to call him,” Dean says. He slides his phone from his pocket and scrolls to Cas’s number. Jess watches him, clearly marveling at the phone. Dean makes a mental note to hook her up with a smartphone ASAP. 

Cas answers the phone with his usual gravelly, “Dean.”

“Hey, Cas.”

“Do you have any news?”

“I haven’t found anything on these surveillance cameras,” Dean admits. “It’s like they just disappeared. How about you? Any of the local beat cops see anybody that shouldn’t be there?”

“It’s pretty rural. Not a lot of beat cops,” Cas says. “I’ve checked all the motels, abandoned buildings. No sign of Sam.”

Dean nods to himself. “Alright.” He sighs. “I don’t know.”

Jess’s face lights up, and she says, “Maybe they’re not squatting. Maybe they’re above board”

“You know, check… real estate offices,” Dean tells Cas. “See if anybody bought a place or rented a place. I mean, these people had a freakin’ plane. Maybe they do things legit.”

“Okay, I understand. I’ll call you in the morning,” Cas says.

“Thanks, man, I owe you one,” Dean says.

“Of course you don’t,” Cas says. “It’s Sam.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “It’s Sam.” The call ends, and Dean looks up to see Jess staring at him intently. “What? I got something on my face.”

“You live like this,” Jess says.

“Yeah.”

“Not the bunker, I mean. People getting taken. People being in danger. This is what your life is like all the time.”

Dean shrugs. “Not all the time, but yeah. A lot of the time.”

“Was it always like this?” Jess asks. 

“Size of the operation’s grown,” Dean says, waving a hand around to indicate the bunker. “Dad’s not around anymore, or Bobby. World got a whole lot bigger ’cause of some of the stuff we’ve seen. Demons, angels, Leviathan.” He snorts and shakes his head. “God. Actual God and his sister.” 

“But the danger,” Jess says. “That’s how it’s always been?”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, nodding. “That’s the hunting life.”

They sit quietly side by side, Dean still flipping through traffic cam footage, even though he knows he isn’t likely to find anything. When he glances over at Jess, her eyes are glued to the laptop screen, following the movement of any vehicle passing in the cam footage. As the night wears on, her head begins to droop, though, her chin finally coming to rest on her chest. When she starts tipping forward, Dean gently catches her and lowers her arms to the table, pillowing her head against her hands. One blonde curl, now dry and corkscrewed, hangs down over her forehead.

Dean abruptly stands up to get a beer, knocking his chair back a little, but Jess doesn’t seem to respond to the sound. When Dean gets to the kitchen and opens the fridge, he sees the nearly empty package of pepper jack cheese. He grabs three beers instead. He drinks them slowly while he continues to scan traffic camera footage, occasionally looking at Jess. She’s a pretty sleeper, not like Sam, who has always smushed his face into whatever surface he lay down on, mouth hanging open. He’s slept like that since he was a baby, sprawled out and relaxed, the sleep of the perfectly safe, long after he knew better. 

Jess sighs softly in her sleep. Dean brushes her hair away from her face. She stirs without opening her eyes.

“Sam?” she murmurs.

Dean freezes with his hand still resting lightly on her hair. “Shh, ’s ok,” he whispers.

“Come to bed. It’s late.”

Dean’s heart beats arhythmically, he’s pretty sure. That’s the only reason for that lurch in his chest. He takes a deep breath.

“I’ll be done in a little while,” he says softly, not really trying to mimic Sam’s voice, just his word choice – or what Dean would imagine that word choice to be.

“Hmph,” Jess grumbles in her sleep. “You’ll work yourself to death, baby.” She burrows her face into the crook of her elbow and doesn’t make another sound. Dean sits there, still and stunned. The last beer goes warm.

Morning comes with Dean still awake, still half-assedly flipping through traffic cams while mostly watching Jess sleep. When he can’t stand it anymore, he heads back to the kitchen to make some coffee and consider what they have on hand for breakfast. Not much, as it turns out. A few eggs. Some of Sam’s veggie bacon, since Dean won’t touch it and it lasts forever, not being made out of anything remotely like meat. The end of a loaf of bread. Dean considers his meager supplies for a moment before settling on French toast. The coffee finishes brewing at about the same time Dean wraps up the French toast, which both coincide with a tousle-haired Jess appearing in the kitchen doorway, yawning and rubbing her eyes. 

“Mornin’,” Dean says, pouring a cup of coffee and handing it to her. She snatches it greedily and practically pokes her nose into the cup, taking a deep breath.

“Damn, that smells good,” she says, and then, looking a little embarrassed, “Good morning.”

“You get some rest?” Dean asks her. He plates the French toast and gestures to the table, where Jess sits, clutching her coffee mug in a death grip. 

“Yeah, surprisingly,” Jess says. “I’m not used to being the one falling asleep on top of her work.”

Dean chuckles as he sets the plates on the table, snagging syrup and the sugar bowl before sitting down himself. “Yeah, Sammy still pulls all-nighters. He’s probably drooled on half the books in this place.”

Jess snorts into her coffee. “Nice.”

“Hey, just telling it like it is,” Dean says. “Are you trying to say he _didn’t_ fall asleep with his face smack in the middle of a book?” 

“Only one or two… _dozen_ times, okay, yeah, it happened a lot.”

“He doesn’t know how to turn it off,” Dean says. “Never has.”

“Turn it off?” Jess asks.

“His brain. He just works until his body shuts down. Only thing that makes him stop,” Dean says. Jess nods in understanding.

“He was like that with tests. Midterms were bad, finals were worse. And the LSAT? Oof.” Jess widens her eyes and shakes her head.

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“Didn’t sleep for four nights. Four. I thought I was going to have to take him to the E.R. for a sedative!” Jess says. 

Dean shrugs. “Yeah, that’s about what I figured.”

“He made a 174, though,” Jess says proudly.

“That’s good, right?” 

“Highest score is 180.”

Dean smiles. “He probably would’ve gotten a perfect score if he could take it twice.”

“174 was high enough,” Jess says. “If he had tried to put himself through that stress again, I would’ve put my foot down.”

“Oh, you would’ve, would you?” Dean asks. 

“Mmhmm.”

“And was little Sammy scared of big bad Jess’s foot coming down?” 

“Of course he was,” Jess says. “You will be, too. Just wait and see.” Her cheeks flush a little pink and she begins an in-depth study of her French toast instead of looking at Dean, which is probably for the best, since Dean’s face is a little hot, too.

“Yeah, well,” he says.

“Yeah,” she agrees. 

In a rare moment of perfect timing that might suggest Cas actually was Dean’s personal guardian angel, Dean’s phone rings and lights up with Cas’s name. He answers it, trying not to sound too grateful.

“Hey, Cas. What do you got?”

“I think I may have found Sam’s location,” Cas says quietly. Dean hears birds and wind in the background. “It’s a farm. It appears empty, but it was rented two weeks ago to a woman with an English accent.”

“Did you have a look inside?” Dean asks.

“No. No it’s— it’s powerfully warded,” Cas says. 

“Powerfully warded?” Dean repeats. Jess raises her eyebrows. “Okay, see, buddy, that— that was your headline right there.”

After a long pause, Cas, sounding confused, asks, “Are we still discussing the same thing?”

“Where are you?” Dean asks.

“I’ll text you the address,” Cas says. Dean’s phone dings. 

“Okay, got it. I’m on my way.” Dean stands, Jess also rising quickly to her feet. When he looks at her in confusion, she frowns.

“What?” Jess asks.

“Uh… yeah. Yeah, so, I was thinking—”

“You were thinking that I would stay here?” Jess supplies.

“Well, yeah. Pretty much,” Dean says.

“Because I’ve been so useless thus far?”

“What? No, that isn’t what—”

“And because, unlike you, I’m not invested in Sam’s life or safety,” Jess continues, plowing right over Dean’s attempts to talk. 

“That wasn’t—”

“It’s not like I was willing to _shoot_ someone if I had to, or to—”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Dean says, holding up both hands in surrender. “I wasn’t trying to say you couldn’t handle yourself. I was just thinking about Sam.”

“So am I,” Jess says.

“Well, I’m thinking about how mad Sam’s gonna be when he finds out I brought you with me to some crazy English kidnapper-lady’s farmhouse that’s warded out the ass!” Dean says.

“Mad?” Jess asks incredulously. “I don’t care if he’s _mad_ , Dean. I care if he’s alive!”

“Yeah, and I need to be able to focus on getting him out of there alive,” Dean says. “I can’t do that if I’m worrying about you, too.”

“Good thing you don’t need to worry about me, then,” Jess says, pasting a big, bright, fake smile on her face. Dean knows when he’s defeated, so he sighs.

“Okay, let’s at least make sure you’re properly armed before we head out,” he says. 

When Jess buckles herself into the Impala’s passenger seat, she’s armed with the same pistol she used yesterday, a vial of holy water, a silver knife, and an anti-possession charm on a silver chain. The way Dean sees it, Sam can be the one who has the tattoo conversation with her, if she decides she wants to stick around. 

That thought sinks in his stomach like a stone. She might not want to stick around. She might take Sam and go. Sam might want to leave, with Jess back. He almost certainly will, not that Dean could blame him, blame either of them, really. Sam always wanted out. He tried with Jess, then later with Amelia. No reason why he wouldn’t want to try with Jess again, now that she’s back. This could be Sam’s last chance at a real life, and Dean’s final go-round with losing his brother for good. 

The drive out to meet Cas is mostly quiet. Dean keeps his eyes on the road, the radio low, and both hands firmly on the wheel. Jess moves restlessly in the passenger seat, though whether it’s about them getting closer to finding Sam or because she spent the night passed out at a table, Dean couldn’t guess. He sure as shit isn’t about to ask, either. 

A few hours into the drive, when the sun starts to hug the horizon, Jess turns to Dean and says, “You know I had to come with you.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, followed by a loud sigh. “Yeah, I know.”

“It’s not just why you think. It’s not just because I have as much right to do this as you do, though I do.”

“I know you do. I never said you—”

“ _But_ ,” she continues more firmly, “they, whoever took Sam, obviously know something about the two of you. They knew how to get into your super-secret bunker. That woman knew you by name. Do you think Sam is the one who told her about you?”

Dean shakes his head. “No. No way he tells her anything.”

“That’s what I thought,” Jess says. “That means whoever it is, whatever they want, they already know enough about you and Sam to know you’re doing this. They’re expecting you to do this.”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Of course not,” Jess agrees. “But they’re not expecting me.”

“Huh?” Dean takes his eyes off the road and looks at Jess. 

“They’re expecting you to come save Sam. I bet they don’t even know I exist,” Jess says. “I’ve been dead for over a decade, remember?”

“So you’re gonna, what? Sneak up on ’em?” Dean asks.

“Why not?” Jess says.

“Because you’re gonna get yourself killed!” Dean says.

“Or maybe I’ll keep you from getting killed,” Jess says.

“Me, I’ve been doing this thing my whole life,” Dean says. “But you—”

“Killed someone before she could kill you and Cas,” Jess finishes. Dean wilts a little. “Yeah. So don’t discount what I bring to the table. I’m not a damsel, and as far as we can tell, this woman isn’t a demon. My money’s on us.”

“Well, alright,” Dean says, because he can tell arguing isn’t going to get him anywhere. 

Instead, Dean spends the rest of the drive talking strategy. Entrances and exits, watching the corners, clearing the room. When he’s exhausted everything strategic he can think of, he moves on to hunting, because if he’s preparing Jess, he’s _really_ preparing her. Traps and hex bags. Salt and silver. Voodoo and hoodoo. Jess listens to all of it with the same rapt attention. If she had any paper, she’d probably be taking notes, but then again, she might just be storing it all in her head like Sam. She got into Stanford, same as Sammy did. She’s clearly smart and her instincts are good, even if she lacks experience. 

Dean has been a part of many plans so crazy they just might work. Hell, a lot of them actually worked. This might be one of those plans. If he crosses his fingers and sends a little prayer out into the universe for Chuck and Amara to do him this one last solid, Jess doesn’t need to know about it. 

The sun is already well above the horizon when Dean and Jess pull up behind Cas’s truck. The narrow, weed-lined road looks anything but ominous. Cas, flanked by overgrown shrubs and fruit trees, squints against the bright sunlight. It’s not that Dean doesn’t believe Cas found the right spot; he just can’t get his hopes up, not yet. 

“Where’s all this warding you mentioned?” Dean asks, exiting the Impala. 

“It’s cloaked,” Cas says, turning towards the unremarkable white farmhouse with a rusted-out truck half-buried in tall grass parked beside it. “It’s very powerful.”

“Yeah, definitely looks it,” Dean says. Cas doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm, though he’s much better at it these days than he used to be. Instead, the angel trains his eyes on Jess, walking up to stand beside them.

“You brought Jess,” Cas says.

“Nice to see you, too, Cas,” Jess says, her smile more like bared teeth than anything civil.

“You sure there’s anyone inside?” Dean asks, nodding at the farmhouse.

“No,” Cas says. “The agent says the lease was handled long-distance, but someone warded the house.”

“I’m gonna go have a closer look,” Dean says. He begins to walk towards the house when he hears Cas clearing his throat. “You need something, Cas? Drink of water? Cough drop?”

Cas tries very hard not to look in Jess’s directly, which of course means his entire body is angled towards her as he speaks in an undertone to avoid looking like he’s talking about her. “I’m locked out by the warding. Did you plan for me to stay here and watch—”

“Yeah, she already knows her part,” Dean says. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine.”

“You picked a strange time to develop faith, Dean,” Cas says.

“Well, these are strange times, buddy,” Dean says. He gives Cas a half-hearted grin and turns back towards the house. As he approaches the building, he notes what bad shape it’s in. Not only does it need to be painted, but the roof is also in a state of disrepair. The windows sag. When Dean steps inside—front door unlocked, that doesn’t spell trap _at all_ —he sees the peeling linoleum has curled up around the edges of the room. The whole place reeks of mildew and some kind of small, musky animal. 

Dean carefully works his way through the garage and small barn first, not finding any sign of the warding Cas talked about. As Dean walks around outside the building, he looks for any sigils he could erase, any carved rune work, but still doesn't see anything. He knows that doesn’t mean the warding isn’t there. If anything, it suggests the person who placed it is more skilled than Dean originally anticipated. The root cellar is locked from the inside. Dean loses all semblance of subtlety by giving it a good rattle. If they know he’s coming, they know he’s coming. Why be coy about it?

He sees movement in an upstairs window and takes a step back to look up at it. As his feet align, he feels a surge of energy around him. Looking down, he sees a sigil roughly two feet across powering up, bright light beaming upward.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says, as he realizes he can’t move. He’s completely constrained within the sigil, as surely as a demon in a devil’s trap. He can’t even shuffle his feet to kick at the design.

“Dean Winchester,” a smug English voice says from behind him. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Fuck you, lady,” Dean says. “Where’s my brother?”

“Now, now,” she says, easily reaching through the sigil and clamping a set of heavy iron cuffs to his wrists. Dean strains as hard as he can, but he can barely twitch. Only after he’s thoroughly shackled does the woman step within his line of sight. She’s slender, blonde, and dressed like a librarian – the non-sexy kind.

“I want to see Sam,” Dean says.

“Well, look at us!” the English woman chirps. “We both want the very same thing, don’t we?” She grabs Dean by the chain and kicks at the sigil under his feet, marring the line and breaking its hold. The chains must also be enchanted, however, because he can’t kick or punch, can barely raise his hands. The woman tugs the chains, and Dean trots along obediently behind her, cussing a blue streak as he goes. 

“Is that really necessary?” the woman asks him.

“Fuck you,” Dean says.

“I was led to believe Sam was the smarter brother, but you both seem to share the same limited vocabulary,” she says, pursing her lips. “Americans.”

She tugs the chains, leading him into the house, towards a door. When she releases the chains, Dean still can’t run or fight, even as she walks to the door and opens it. Dean watches her step into the doorway, standing there on display.

From deep within the cellar, Dean hears a voice he knows better than his own call up, “Screw yourself.”

The blonde looks annoyed more than anything else, reaching for Dean’s chains and dragging him forward into sight. She holds him by the back of the neck and thrusts him forward. The cellar is dim, but Dean would know that shape anywhere. From here, he can _smell_ Sam, his sweat and blood. 

“Dean!” Sam shouts.

“I’m as happy to see him as you are,” the woman says, manhandling Dean down the stairs, “’cause, while you may be able to withstand my snapping your body apart joint by joint, can you watch it happen to Dean?”

Dean looks at Sam, cut and bruised and bleeding, and sees the panic on his face. He knows that panic, has felt it himself too many times to count. Days of possible torture couldn’t break Sam, but Dean can read the truth in Sam’s face. He’d do anything to protect Dean from that same torture, anything at all. Dean knows, because he would do the same. They’re doomed before they start, and even someone who knows fuckall about the Winchesters knows this: their greatest weakness will always and forever be each other. 

Sam’s eyes widen in fear as the woman shackles Dean to a chain hanging next to Sam’s chair. Bless the kid, he tries to keep it together when the woman picks up a leather sap and strikes Dean across the stomach, hard. Dean retches, gagging on the last cup of coffee he’d sucked down on the road.

“Tell me, Dean,” the woman says, as he tries to keep his footing, tries not to vomit. She sounds so goddamn polite, so incredibly English. “Things needn’t get ugly. You can simply tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know anything,” Dean says between clenched teeth. “They just keep me around for my good looks.

“Charming. How long do you think Samuel here can hold out while I beat you to death?” English hits him again in the rib cage, once, twice.

“Go fuck yourself,” Dean says. “Sammy won’t tell you shit. He’s better than me. Stronger.” Next to him, Sam’s eyes are wide and wet. 

“Hmm. Well, if Sam is so much stronger, perhaps _you_ can tell me more about the American hunter network. Who do you answer to?” she asks. 

“Jesus Christ, Superstar,” Dean says, smiling at her and batting his eyelashes. 

“Clever,” English says. She tightens her fingers around the sap and presses it to his side, leaning her weight into her fist and grinding the weighted leather into the space between two ribs. Dean can hear it scrape against his bones. She twists her hand. “Let’s try again, shall we?

“Shit,” Dean says. “Shit. Fine. It’s Oliver. We answer to Oliver.”

The pressure lets up. She actually smiles, her voice all chipper and perky. “Good! Oliver who?”

Dean gives her a shit-eating grin. “Oliver Closof.”

English delivers another hard hit to the belly, and Dean does vomit up coffee, bitter and thin. She strikes him across the face before he can finish, so that Dean is spitting blood out along with the bile.

“No, no,” Dean says. “I just came by for some tea and a beating.”

“Really?” English asks. She doesn’t even feign a smile. Her face is as cold as any monster Dean has ever hunted. “See, I thought you might be on for a little chat about your mate, Benjamin Lafitte?”

Dean sways a little. He hadn’t thought about Benny in years, had put it away in the place where he puts away anything that doesn’t do him any good, any problem he can’t solve. Blood drips from his lower lip and falls onto the dirty concrete floor. 

“I’m sorry, you called him Benny,” she says. “You know, the vampire whom you released from Purgatory and befriended.” She brings an honest-to-god china teacup to her thin, red lips and takes a sip. Dean just continues staring at her. 

“I see,” she says. “Well, the English are nothing if not patient.” She sets the teacup down with a _tink_. Her slim hands slide over the instruments, finding a set of embellished brass knuckles exactly like those her hitwoman had worn. Dean looks at Sam, hoping to convey the apology, the desperate pleas to not give her anything. Sam pants like a kicked dog as the woman approaches Dean, heels clicking on the floor. 

The beating she gives Dean isn’t the worst he’s ever received – even with the enchanted brass knuckles, she just doesn’t have the size behind it. She’s dogged, though, and willing to hit him again and again in the same spot, until he hangs limp from the chains. Sam, bless him, doesn’t beg her to stop. Dean feels so much pride for his little brother, because he knows this is the hardest thing for Sammy. Sam just watches him with sad, desperate eyes. 

When the woman takes a break, walks back upstairs t0 do… whatever it is she does, Sam looks at Dean, a pained smile on his face.

“Hey,” he says to Dean. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not sure that I’m not,” Dean confesses. 

“So?” Even cut up and bloody, Sam does impressive puppy eyes .

“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything, okay?” Dean says. “First off, who’s Angry Spice?”

Sam blinks sweat, blood, and tears out of his eyes. “She uh— she’s— she’s Men of Letters. Uh, British Men of Letters.”

“Is that a thing? What the hell? Aren’t we supposed to be on the same team?” Dean asks. The door into the cellar opens again, the crisp click of the woman’s heels echoing down the stairs. Dean hangs limpy from his wrists. “Oh, God.”

“Gentleman,” English says, so perky Dean can barely stand it. “So, to recap – you live in the Men of Letters bunker, awash in the world’s greatest collection of occult knowledge, and yet you know ‘nothing’.”

“Right. What a waste,” Dean says, laughing. The laugh quickly turns into a cough, and he tastes blood.

“It seems you apes have never read a single book. The Men of Letters has a long tradition of intellectual excellence,” she says, picking up a blade from her tray of instruments. “In London, we’ve undertaken exhaustive studies of even the most arcane topics.” She strokes her fingertips down the side of the blade. Dean feels sick. He looks at Sam, who looks back with a look of such naked desperation on his face that Dean knows the kid can’t last much longer. Whatever the English bitch put him through, it was bad. He’s already primed to fall apart. 

The woman slowly strolls across the cellar towards Dean, still talking. “For example, parts of the body most sensitive to intense pain.” She grabs Dean by the chin, gripping him tightly so he can’t jerk his head way. “The eardrum.” She touches the tip of the knife to his ear. “Decaying tooth.” The tip just barely grazes his cheek. “Below the belt, of course.” 

Dean tries not to give her anything, but he can’t help his eyes widening. She barely even looks pleased.

“And my favorite,” she coos, “under the eyelid.” She slowly brings the knife in closer to Dean’s face as he struggles, trying to break her grip. “Did you know it’s possible to die from pain?”

Dean does know this, though he knows it takes a lot. He’s seen it. He doesn’t want to live it. He tries to go away in his own mind, find some hidden place he can hide from the pain. Beside him, he hears Sam make a small, frightened grunt. 

Suddenly, the clicking of someone turning off the safety on a pistol cuts through the stagnant basement air.

“You need to back the fuck off of him right now,” Jess says, her golden hair hanging around her head in a glowing halo. She looks like Dean once thought angels would look: beautiful and ferocious and made from marble. Her jawline doesn’t tremble. Her lips don’t twitch. Dean could kiss her, could worship at her feet, for coming in when she did. 

The English woman freezes, her lip quivering. This, she didn’t expect. Dean watches her face as she stares at Jess, trying and failing to place her. Sam’s relationship with Jess was so long ago, after all. Just a blip on the Winchester roadmap of misery, death, and failure. A jumping off point, but not something to circle back to, not for someone who hasn’t lived with Sam day after day. Jess, hands steady as they train the pistol directly at the woman’s pale forehead, is the piece that doesn’t fit into English’s puzzle.

“Jess?” Sam whispers next to him. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, trying to catch Sam’s eyes, trying to let him know it’s real, she’s real. Sam just looks confused, his eyes going in and out of focus. He looks like he did in that hospital, before Cas took the crazy away. He looks like he’s moments from shattering. 

Jess strides right up to English, snatching the keys off the tray of torture instruments. She snarls and says, “Drop the knife, bitch.”

The English woman tosses the knife to the ground, but not fast enough for Jess’s liking. Jess pistol whips her across the face. Sam stares at the two women, stunned and befuddled, like he can’t make sense of what he’s seeing. English drops to her knees on the dirty floor, blood pouring from a gash in her forehead. Jess bares her teeth, feral and ready to bite. She manages to press the keys into Dean’s hand before taking another step towards the English Woman of Letters, now cowering on her knees on the concrete. 

Dean barely has time to start unlocking his wrists before English lunges up from the ground at Jess, trying to grab the gun. Jess seems ready for this fight, though. She fires right away, putting a bullet through the woman’s thigh. English staggers back, blood running down her slacks, as Jess levels the gun at her head. Dean had anticipated a fight, but not this. Not seeing Jess standing there ready to kill the woman who had taken first Sam, then Dean captive, especially not after her inner struggle over killing that hitwoman barely two days prior. Dean is impressed and a little scared. 

When the realization of what’s happening to her hits the English woman’s eyes, she turns her face up towards Jess, open and pleading. A tear even runs down her cheek. Dean wonders if she practiced that in front of a mirror.

“Please,” English says. “Please, I have a son.”

Jess’s hand doesn’t shake, but Dean can see the hesitation in the line of her jaw. She might very well shoot this woman. Dean would let her, for his own sake, but he can’t let her hurt herself like that, or Sam, who still stares at her like he is certain she isn’t real. Like he can’t believe the figment in front of him, but he’ll drink it up anyway. He’ll drown in it. 

Dean can’t allow that. He fumbles with the keys until he releases the shackles at his wrists, then does the same for his ankles. Beside him, Sam doesn’t even struggle. Dean swears to himself as he kicks his shackles aside. The English woman continues to beg Jess, and Sam continues to stare in mute, enraptured horror.

“Hey,” Dean softly says to Jess. His hands cover hers as he takes the gun, exchanging it for the key. She looks so grateful that he thinks they could both cry, if other things didn’t need doing. She turns away from Dean and the English woman, who realizes in that moment how well and truly fucked she is.

“No, please,” English calls after Jess. “Don’t leave me with him. He’s an animal, surely you see that!”

Jess continues calmly unlocking Sam’s restraints, even as he gently touches her face, eyes swimming and mouth agape. She glances over her shoulder at the English woman scrabbling in the dirt.

“If he’s an animal,” Jess says, in a cool and detached voice, “what do you think that makes me?” 

Dean smiles as the horrified expression spreads across the English woman’s face. When Jess turns her attention back to Sam, Dean squeezes the trigger. A small hole blooms in the woman’s forehead. She has just enough time to look truly surprised before she pitches forward like a discarded bag of sand. Her blood doesn’t even make pretty pictures in the dirt.

“You’re not real. I know you’re not real, but it’s so good to see you, Jess. It’s so good,” Sam whispers to Jess as she untangles the ropes and chains binding him. They cling to his skin as she pulls them free, crusted there with dried blood. Dean turns his back on the dead woman and uses this moment to look Sam over. He looks pale and thin. Filthy. His visible skin is covered in gashes and grime. His naked feet look like strips have been sliced or burned away. The tears in Sam’s eyes aren’t from physical pain, though.

“Shh,” Jess tries to soothe him. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You’re not real,” Sam repeats. “Please don’t go. I don’t mind it if it’s you. I don’t mind if I see you. You’ve been dead for so long, Jess.”

“Didn’t stick,” Jess says. Dean wants to brand ‘Winchester’ across her skin, clear as day.

“It was my fault, all mine. Jess, I’m so sorry you died. I’m so sorry,” Sam pleads. 

Jess looks at Dean for help or reassurance. Dean shrugs—no way to know what that bitch did to Sammy until they’re free and clear—and looks down at the tray of torture implements. A discarded metal syringe rests between the blades and hooks. Drugs, then. Fine. Drugs can wear off. If drugs were involved, it means Sam’s not having a total mental breakdown.

Jess and Dean manage to drag a nearly insensate Sam to his feet. He mutters to himself all the while.

“Oh dear,” another English voice says, this one male and decidedly less posh. “I do wish I’d’ve gotten here a tad sooner.”

Dean, Jess, and even Sam turn to look at the stairs leading down to the cellar. A short, dark-haired man with a close-cropped beard and an amused look on his face stands on the middle step. Cas looms in the doorway behind him.

“Doesn’t look like things ended well for our Lady Bevell,” the man says, as he continues down the steps. He moves easily, hands by his side, and though he doesn’t appear armed, both Dean and Jess instinctively move in front of Sam.

“Aren’t gonna end so great for you either, if you take another step,” Dean warns.

The man smiles. “We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m not here to kill you or torture you. Not my style, really.”

“I think we need to hear what your style _is_ , then,” Jess says. 

“What you were told is basically true,” the man says. “We were keen on knowing about the two of you, seeing as you seem to be partially carrying on the Men of Letters’ work here now that the American chapter is defunct.”

“So you sic your attack dog on us to… what, say hi?” Dean asks, looking down at English’s— _Lady Bevell’s_ —body in disgust.

The man makes a face like he’s thinking it over. “Well, parts of our group suspect some sort of malfeasance amongst you American hunters. No argument – Lady Bevell went too far. I deeply apologize.”

Sam lets out a hysterical little “ha!” 

“She’s paid the consequences for her choices,” the man says. “We would have preferred to take care of her ourselves. She is—or, was—ours, after all.”

“Should’ve showed up a little faster, then,” Dean says.

“Now, I’m here to extend an olive branch. We want to work with you,” the man says. 

“We’re not going to work with you!” Jess says, sounding furious. “Why would we believe anything you say to us?”

“Miss, I apologize, but who are you, exactly?” the man asks. “This is between my organization and the Winchesters.”

“Yeah, and she’s one of us,” Dean says firmly. “So answer her question.”

“If I weren’t sincere, if I meant you harm, there’s a dozen ways I could’ve come in here and taken you prisoner instead of being unarmed.” He holds out the edges of his coat as he speaks, demonstrating the lack of sidearm. “Not to mention I powered down all the wardings in this shack so your attack dog could come in.” At this, he nods at Cas, who scowls back at him. “I reckon you could finish me off without breaking a sweat, am I right?”

“I don’t sweat under any circumstances,” Cas says. Beside Dean, Jess makes a choking sound that he’s pretty sure is her holding back a laugh.

“My number,” the man says, holding a piece of paper out to Cas, who takes it hesitantly. “Take your time, cool down, and just think it over. And what have you got to lose—”

“Nah,” Dean says. He shakes his head at Cas. Cas crumples the business card and drops it on the floor. “We’ve heard enough.”

“Dean,” the man says.

“I said, we’ve heard enough,” Dean growls. “Now, are me and my family walking out of here, or are we gonna have a problem?”

The man sighs and steps away from the stairs. “Have it your way. Next British Man of Letters who comes isn’t gonna ask so nicely.”

Dean looks around at the room, at the shackles, the chair, the tray of metal instruments, some bloody and some shiny. He looks at Lady Bevell’s limp body.

“Yeah, well, next time we won’t answer so nicely, either,” he says.

Dean walks up to Sam’s left side and drapes Sam’s arm over his shoulders. Jess does the same on the right. Sam looks a little more solid, at least when looking at the British Man of Letters and dead Lady Bevell. His eyes still wander off whenever he looks at Jess, but Dean can’t worry about that right now. Once they’re at the car, Cas can heal Sam and they will get this all figured out.

“You doing alright, Sammy?” Dean asks, as they make their way through the dingy building. 

“I think I’m still a little messed up, Dean,” Sam says. “I think I’m― I’m seeing things.”

“We’ll get it figured out back at the car, okay?” Dean tells Sam, which seems to relax him. Sam’s injuries are pretty severe, but no major breaks to his legs. The burns, because those are definitely burns, on his foot look horrible. Cas can make him right as rain, though, as soon as they get Sam settled in the car. 

They all breathe a collective sigh of relief when they get Sam seated in the passenger seat. Cas gently shoulders Jess out of the way, looking sincere and apologetic, which is Cas’s default facial expression. He presses two fingers to Sam’s forehead. Sam inhales sharply, and Dean watches the cuts glow and then seal themselves closed. The awful wounds on Sam’s foot fade and then disappear. Sam blinks a few times, like he’s clearing his eyes, and then looks up at Cas.

“Thanks, man,” Sam says.

“You’re welcome,” Cas says. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find you sooner. We tried.”

“Not your fault,” Sam says. “They― those― those _people_ did this. We didn’t know they existed. How could we be prepared for them?”

“Now we know,” Dean says. 

“We do,” Sam agrees. 

Cas nods his agreement and steps to the side, putting Jess within Sam’s direct line of sight. He startles, hissing out a sharp, “Jesus!” and goes noticeably pale. 

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean says.

“Dean,” Sam says, eyes widening with panic. “Dean, I’m still seeing her. Cas, I need you to use your mojo again. The drugs, that spell, they’re still in my system. I can see her, I can―”

“Hi, Sam,” Jess says.

“I can _hear_ her,” Sam says, clamping his hands over his ears. Dean reaches down and grabs him by the wrists, pulling his hands away.

“Hey. Listen to me, Sam,” Deans says. Sam tries to pull his hands away, but Dean holds firm. Sam squeezes his eyes as tightly closed as he can. “Sammy! Are you listening to me? I need you to listen.” Sam’s eyes open slightly. “Yeah, there you go. Just take a breath, okay? You’re not losing your marbles.”

“But Dean, I can see Jess,” Sam protests.

“Yeah, I know. So can I,” Dean says. “So can Cas. If she looks at my baby’s beautiful paint job, she can probably see herself, because she’s real, Sam.”

Sam shakes his head hard and goes back to struggling. “No. No. That isn’t possible. This is her again, Bevell, the British Men of Letters, they’re doing this to me. It’s another spell.”

“It’s not,” Dean says.

“It isn’t,” Jess says. “Believe me, I had a hard time with it, too. One minute, I was in our apartment waiting for you to come home. I was baking cookies. Then suddenly, I was waking up in the middle of the forest. Dean was there, and he told me it had been twelve years since those cookies. Twelve years since I―”

“Died,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Jess says. “Since I died. I died and my body burned, and you hunted down the thing that did it.”

Sam looks to Dean, always to Dean, for answers. “But how is this possible?”

“Amara,” Dean says with a shrug. “She told me she was giving me something as a thank you gift for getting her and Chuck back together, and well, surprise! It was Jess.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Sam says.

“Brother, what part of our lives has ever made much sense?” Dean asks. Sam chuckles a little. “Hey, I want to get out of here. You and Jess want to sit in the back? Won’t hurt my feelings.”

“Um,” Jess says. Both brothers look at her. Dean thinks her smile looks a little forced, like she’s having to work for it, but that could be attributed to a lot of things. “I was thinking we could all sit up front. Bench seat, right? We can dump the tapes on the floorboard.”

“Hey! That’s disrespectful,” Dean says.

Jess snorts. “Please, I’ve seen your tape collection.”

“You take that back!” Dean says.

“Can’t help the truth, Dean. I’m just honest like that,” Jess says.

“What is happening?” Sam asks.

“Your brother’s upset that I’m questioning his degree of commitment to rock from the seventies,” Jess says.

Sam narrows his eyes. “When did the two of you―?”

“Realize how terrible Jess’s taste in music is?” Dean says. “Apparently just now.”

Jess puts her hand on Sam’s shoulder. He doesn’t flinch away, though she looks like she expects him to. “It’s been a long few days, Sam.”

Sam nods weakly. He allows Jess to climb over him and plant herself in the middle of the Impala’s front bench seat. Dean closes the door on the image of her leaning across Sam’s lap to put the tape box on the floor. He could kick himself for how gutted that brief display of intimacy makes him feel. Dean should just be relieved they have Sam back. He _is_ relieved, tremendously so, but it feels more complicated than it ought to, and he can’t figure out exactly why. 

“Dean?” Cas says. “Besides the obvious, is something wrong?”

“Just a little messed up in the head, Cas. Nothing new,” Dean says. Cas frowns at him.

“You were injured as well,” Cas says.

“It’s nothing.”

“Be still,” Cas tells him, reaching out to touch Dean’s forehead. Even as the pain abates, Dean has to grit his teeth against the strange sensation of his bones sliding back into place, of swollen tissue rapidly shrinking back to normal. This kind of healing never feels quite as natural as the regular, slow-motion kind.

“Thanks,” Dean says. Cas smiles, a little tired around the edges.

“This is difficult,” Cas says.

“Yeah, finding out our evil English— British— whatever! Our cousins have it out for me and can apparently get into our house?” Dean says, shaking his head. “Not exactly comforting.”

“No. I mean Jess. This experience is hard for you,” Cas says. “You’re relieved to find Sam, but you’re uncomfortable with their reunion. Perhaps you fear there’s no place for you there, if Sam has Jess to be his companion.”

“Jesus, Cas, you’re not supposed to say that shit out loud,” Dean says. 

“How else would I say it?”

“Just… not so out loud!” 

“Hmm,” Cas says. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“You take it under advisement!” Dean says. “I mean― you know what I mean.”

“I’ll see you back at the bunker, Dean,” Cas says with a small smile. 

“Yeah, yeah. Pick up some food on the way home, will ya? Fridge is empty.”

“Yes, Dean.”

Dean rolls his eyes at Cas as he gets into his stolen pickup truck. Cas has had terrible taste in cars from day one. As the truck pulls away, Dean heads back to the Impala. He knows he’s physically healed, but he still feels like he’s limping. He half expects to open the door and find Jess and Sam making out, but instead they’re both sitting stiffly side by side, not touching at all. Dean doesn’t overthink it as he slides into the driver’s seat. 

The drive back to the bunker feels longer than the drive out, which is unusual. Palpable tension fills the car, and most attempts at starting small talk die out quickly. Sam leans against the window, and the car soon rocks him to sleep, just like it did when he was a baby. His face smooshes up against the window, and even from the driver’s seat, Dean can see a small line of drool running down the glass. Jess notices him looking and smiles, thin and tired, lips pressed together.

“Sleeping Beauty, huh?” Dean tries to joke, but it falls flat. “Sorry.”

Jess shakes her head. “No. It’s fine. It’s just― seeing him in person is different than hearing about him. You didn’t look that different from the last time I saw you.”

“You said I looked like shit,” Dean says indignantly.

“To be fair, Dean, you were _really_ hot when I met you,” Jess says.

“And I’m not hot now? I look basically the same!”

“Yeah, you do. Older, but pretty close to the same. Sam, though.” Jess looks over at Sam, her eyes shiny. “He looks so much older. He looks like he’s been through hell.”

“We both have. And back again,” Dean says. “Don’t tell me after everything, you’re not gonna stick around ’cause he doesn’t look twenty-three anymore.”

“Dean!” Jess snaps.

“I’m just saying, he’s still Sam on the inside,” Dean says. “Even if the outside’s a little worn.”

“I don’t care how he looks on the outside. He could have a hideously disfiguring facial scar, and I’d still think he was cute,” Jess says.

“Like Fleur What’s-Her-Face and Bill Weasley,” Dean says. Jess cocks her head and squints at him. “What? I read.”

“Fleur married Ron’s brother?” 

“Oh shit,” Dean says. “Sorry about the spoilers.”

“Dammit! I was going to read that!” Jess smacks him on the arm. “You ass!”

“I said I was sorry,” he says, as she keeps smacking him. She peters out after a half-dozen light smacks, leaving her hand resting on his arm. 

“Uh. Jess?” Dean says, glancing down at her hand.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s different on the outside, Dean,” she says softly. “It doesn’t even matter if he’s different on the inside. I still love him. It’s about how _I’m_ different on the inside now.”

“How different can you be? It hasn’t even been a week since you saw him last,” Dean says. He keeps looking at her hand on his arm. 

“I’m different,” Jess says. “I know more. I’ve done more. Big things.”

“Yeah, and when you do big things, it can cloud your judgment,” Dean says. “Trust me on that one, ’cause I’m the king of clouded judgment.”

“My judgment isn’t clouded. I’m not jumping into anything. I just want you to know it’s complicated now for me,” Jess says.

“Yeah,” Dean sighs. “Yeah. For me, too.”

“I love him, Dean.”

“I know you do.”

“You love him, too.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, of course I do.”

“More than the normal amount,” Jess says.

“Our lives ain’t exactly normal,” Dean points out. Jess squeezes his arm.

“Right. I’m just saying, it’s complicated. For me. For you.” She looks at Sam and smiles softly. “I think it’s going to be complicated for him, too. This isn’t going to happen like some higher power imagined it happening.”

“I have no idea what a higher power was imagining,” Dean says. “And you know, to be fair, her brother’s kind of a shitty writer, so— so maybe the plotline’s gonna be a little jacked up.”

Jess leans towards Dean and presses her lips lightly to his cheek. “It’s definitely gonna be a little jacked up.”

Sam sleeps for most of the drive, but once he wakes, he sees Jess’s hand on Dean’s arm, where it has rested for hours. Dean carefully watches him from the corner of his eye, gauging his reaction. Sam seems unbothered, though, and after a couple of minutes, takes Jess’s other hand in his. They spend the rest of the drive like that, Jess’s left hand on Dean’s arm, her right engulfed by Sam’s enormous paw. Dean isn’t sure what he thinks about that, at least not in his brain, but his heart feels warm and his stomach doesn’t clench up all weird about it.

Cas, the literal-ass sonofabitch, has a full spread of fried chicken and sides waiting for them when they get back to the bunker, enough to feed an army of Winchesters. He even bought beer. Granted, it’s the hippy microbrew shit Sam buys when he’s trying to piss Dean off, but right now, beer is beer. Dean happily pops the tops on four and passes them around over Cas’s protests that beer doesn’t affect him.

“One beer doesn’t affect anybody but toddlers, Cas. That ain’t the point!” Dean says, though he already feels a little lightheaded. 

“I fail to see the point,” Cas says.

“It’s celebratory,” Jess explains. “We’re drinking to our victory.”

“Ah. Symbolism,” Cas says, with a slow, serious nod of his head. 

“Exactly,” Dean says. “Now drink your beer and stop acting like a baby, will you?”

They all drink their not-actually-symbolic beers and dig into the fried chicken, which tastes better than any fried chicken has a right to. Maybe the secret herbs and spices include crack. Dean watches Jess tear through an enormous chicken breast with unmitigated delight and then wipe her greasy hands on Sam’s flannel shirt. Dean crows with laughter. Sam hits him with a balled up napkin.

As the meal winds down, Cas starts making noises about getting back to some book he’s been reading. Jess is yawning wide enough to pop her jaw, which Dean is definitely not thinking about too hard. They still have to figure out where to put her, since her only full night’s sleep in the bunker happened at this exact same table. Dean stands up and tugs on Sam’s sleeve.

“Wanna help me get these dishes cleaned up, Sammy?” Dean asks. 

Sam nods and loads his arms up with plates before following Dean into the kitchen. They work quietly side by side, Dean washing and Sam drying, like they have since Sam was tall enough to reach the counter with the dishes. The silence is so comfortable and easy that Dean hates to break it, which of course means Sam can’t leave it alone.

“You alright?” Sam asks him.

“Who, me? I’m as fine as the next guy who spent the afternoon getting tortured.”

Sam chuckles. “Yeah, well, technically you were the next guy.”

“Ouch. Yeah. Sorry about that, man,” Dean says.

“It’s fine. You found me. You found _Jess_.” Sam puts a plate down a little too hard and the edge chips. “Dean, you have no idea what— how I—”

“Yeah, of course I do,” Dean says. “You came back from the dead, didn’t you? More than once, unless my memory’s crapping out on me.”

“Dean.”

“Hey, don’t tell me it’s not the same,” Dean says. “I know it’s not, but it’s also not- _not_ the same.”

“How do you do that?” Sam asks.

“Do what?”

“Say something that shouldn’t make any sense, but have it somehow make total sense.”

Dean shrugs. “Just my natural gift, Sammy.”

They return to silence as they continue working on the dishes, but it feels loaded now. Dean’s hand brushes Sam’s each time he hands over a plate. Neither one of them cracks a joke about it or jerks their hand away. When Dean starts to hand the last plate over to Sam, Sam’s hand closes around Dean’s wrist instead of the plate.

“Sam, what are you doing?” Dean asks.

“I don’t know,” Sam says. “What are you doing?”

“You’re the one’s got me by the wrist, Sammy,” Dean says, though he’s the one who isn’t yanking his hand away.

“Did you mean it? That it was the same?” Sam asks.

“I didn’t say it was the same.”

“You said it wasn’t _not_ the same.”

“Yeah, well, you know me. I say a lot of shit,” Dean says.

“Dean.”

“Sam.”

“It was like that for me when you got back from hell, you know,” Sam says. “So I understand.”

“I saw how you were looking at her today, Sam. That’s not how you looked at me when I came back,” Dean says. “You looked at me like you’ve always looked at me.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “I probably did.”

“So, there you go,” Dean says.

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t feel some kind of way about it, Dean. It just means I felt that way about you more often than not,” Sam says.

“Sammy, don’t,” Dean says. “Don’t mess this up ’cause you’re freaked out.”

“I can’t mess this up,” Sam says. “This has always been here, one way or another.”

“You and Jess, Sam. Don’t mess that up.”

“Me and Jess are me and Jess. Me and you are me and you.”

“And I’m the one who says shit that doesn’t make sense?” Dean scoffs.

“I’m just saying that Jess and I have some stuff we’ll have to figure out. It’s been a long time for me. I’ve had to put my feelings away for a long time,” Sam says.

“Yeah, and now you don’t!” Dean says. “She's right there.”

“I still have to work through it. It can’t be like the past twelve years didn’t exist. It just can’t! Even with her knowing about the hunting stuff, there’s things in my past she doesn’t know. A lot of things. Ugly things, Dean. Things I don’t know if she can forgive.”

“She can,” Dean says. “Trust me.”

“How do you know?” Sam asks. “You barely know her.”

“Know her better than I realized. I understand her, Sam. She’s like you.”

Sam shakes his head. “I always thought she reminded me of you. Do you know you even have the same birthday?”

“I didn’t, no,” Dean says. 

“She’s impulsive like you, too. She’s smart, probably the smartest person I’ve ever met, but she does things without thinking about the consequences. No, like she doesn’t _care_ about the consequences.”

Dean grins. “Yeah, but she thinks like you, Sam. She rolls it all around in her head, looks at every corner. You know how long I spent training her to rescue you? About the same length of time you napped on the drive home. Most of it, I never even had a chance to _show_ her how to do it. She got it just from me describing it. Only other person I know whose brain works like that is you.” 

“I thought you hated how I overthink things,” Sam says, his cheeks a little red.

“I hate how you overthink yourself out of things, Sammy. It’s not the same.”

“So she reminds you of me, and me of you?” Sam asks. “Kind of funny.”

“Kind of not,” Dean says.

“A little funny.” Sam moves too far into Dean’s space. Alarm bells go off in Dean’s head. Sirens. Fucking klaxons and red lights blaring. He stays right where he is.

“Yeah. Little funny,” Dean breathes. Sam leans in and presses his lips to Dean’s, slowly and carefully. They stay like that for a few breaths, the kiss not deepening, but nobody pulling away. Sam is the one who finally pulls back.

“Was that— are you mad at me?” he asks.

“No, Sammy, never,” Dean says. “Not for that. It’s just— it’s complicated. I gotta think about it.”

“Okay,” Sam says. He doesn’t look ashamed of himself or regretful. 

“It’s not— I’m not saying it’s not a thing I didn’t ever think about before, alright?” Dean says. 

“Okay.”

“Sam, I don’t— I’m not trying to—”

Sam smiles. “It’s okay, Dean. Really. We had kind of a weird day.”

“Weird couple of days, what with your dead girlfriend rising from the grave and all,” Dean says.

“Yeah, that, too,” Sam says, smile widening. 

“Can we take a raincheck? Sleep on it or something?”

“Of course.”

Dean exhales in relief. “Okay. I just don’t want to take a chance on—”

“Fucking it up. Yeah, I know,” Sam says.

“Yeah.” 

“We better get back in there, then.”

“Yeah, we better,” Dean says. He takes the stack of dry plates and puts them away while Sam goes back to Jess and Cas. Dean doesn’t rush as he stacks the plates up neatly, then takes a kitchen towel and wipes down all the counters, drying up every last drop of water. His brain turns the kiss over and over in his head, like some kind of physical object he has to look at from every angle in order to identify. It’s not just some trinket. It means something, something powerful and important. Something between the two of them, but also between them and Jess.

By the time Dean has had his think and returns to the war room, Cas has gone in search of his book, and Sam and Jess are leaning in close talking to each other, foreheads almost touching. Dean worries, for a brief second, that he might feel jealous, but directly on the heels of his conversation with Sam in the kitchen, all Dean feels looking at them is warm and pleasantly full. He’s happy to lean against the door frame for a few long minutes, watching Sam touch Jess’s hair, and Jess running her fingertips down the lines on Sam’s face that are so familiar to Dean, but are completely new to Jess. 

Eventually, though, Jess’s keen eyes catch his. She smiles and waves him over. Dean goes obediently, like an eager puppy.

“Sam and I were just discussing the sleeping arrangements,” Jess says. Dean’s heart thumps and his dick definitely thinks about waking up, which, based on the way the corner of Jess’s smile twitches, she might notice. 

“Oh yeah?” Dean says, not at all smooth or casual. “What about them?”

“I thought I might like my own room,” she says. “A little space. A chance to figure myself out. My new self.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Dean says. 

“I think we all have a lot to think about,” Jess says.

“Definitely,” Sam says. Dean nods a little too vigorously, which makes Sam laugh.

“Don’t laugh at me, bitch. I will end you!”

“Sure you will, tough guy,” Sam says.

“Ohhhhkay, you two,” Jess says, rolling her eyes as she stands up. “I’m going to ask Cas to help me find a set of clean sheets in this place and point me to an empty bedroom. I need a decent night’s sleep somewhere other than this table.”

“This table?” Sam asks.

“Dean will tell you all about it,” Jess says. She leans over and kisses Sam on the mouth, sweetly and with a hint of promise. When Sam is flushed pink, she steps away from him, over to Dean, where she does the same. Her lips feel slick and warm, and Dean probably turns as pink as Sam. “Goodnight boys.” 

“Goodnight, Jess,” Sam says.

“’Night,” Dean echoes.

Jess smiles at both of them and then turns away, swaying like a willow bough as she makes her way down the hall, leaving Sam and Dean alone. 

“So,” Dean says.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “So.”

“So that’s a thing.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a thing.”

“We gonna do something about that thing?” Dean asks.

“I don’t know, Dean. Are we?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we are, Sammy.”

Sam smiles. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

Dean wants to answer, but before he can, he yawns so big he feels like his whole body bends backwards. “Guess I need to sleep on it first.”

“That’s okay,” Sam says. “We’ve got time.”

“Yeah. We do,” Dean agrees. “Plenty of time.”


End file.
